Zero Squaredhttp://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Zero Squared is a philosophy podcast from Zero Books. Zero publishes radical philosophy, aesthetics, film theory, experimental fiction, and anything else that smells faintly of the avant-garde. Our books aim not only to demonstrate how philosophical ideas are relevant to every day life, but also to change the terms of it. Douglas Lain is the host of this podcast and the publisher of Zero Books. He hosted the Diet Soap podcast out of this feed for five years. Jasun Horsley is a regular contributor to Zero Squared providing audio commentaries from his "liminalist corner." Zero Squared will continue the tradition of Diet Soap while giving Zero Books authors a chance to talk about their work.
en-uspodOmatic RSS GeneratorSat, 01 Aug 2015 22:28:28 GMTphilosophy,surrealism,marxism,noise,art,collage,anarchism,critical,theory,zero,books,Society & Culture,Philosophya philosophy podcast from zero booksnonoDouglas LainZero Squared is a philosophy podcast from Zero Books. Zero publishes radical philosophy, aesthetics, film theory, experimental fiction, and anything else that smells faintly of the avant-garde. Our books aim not only to demonstrate how philosophical ideas are relevant to every day life, but also to change the terms of it. Douglas Lain is the host of this podcast and the publisher of Zero Books. He hosted the Diet Soap podcast out of this feed for five years. Jasun Horsley is a regular contributor to Zero Squared providing audio commentaries from his "liminalist corner." Zero Squared will continue the tradition of Diet Soap while giving Zero Books authors a chance to talk about their work.
Zero Squared #29: Shooting the Moon<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10785702.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Brian Willems is Assistant Professor at the University of Split, Croatia, where he teaches literature at the Faculty of Philosophy and film theory at the Arts Academy and his book <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/shooting-moon">Shooting the Moon</a> was published in May this year from Zero Books.
<strong>Laurence A Rickels</strong>, author of Germany: A Science Fiction, blurbed the book this way
<em>Shooting the Moon shows how our most abiding object or objective on reality’s horizon was overshot and displaced by the other reality of realization of our wish fantasies. When we ask for the moon we travel a jump cut from an idealized past to a future of wish fulfillment lying deep inside the film medium and its ongoing history. </em>
In this episode you’ll hear a clip from Futurama, Slavoj Zizek explaining a bottle of tea, Chris “Isto” White singing the jazz standard “It's Only a Paper Moon,” The Evolution Control Committee's “The Fucking Moon,” a clip from the auralgraphic entertainment “Dreamies” by Bill Holt, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner performing in “The First Men in the Moon,” Doctor Who and the Monolith reversing the polarity of the neutron flow, Negativland, and in tribute to Don Joyce, one of "Crosley Bendix's" Arts Reviews. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-28T23_54_06-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-28T23_54_06-07_00Wed, 29 Jul 2015 06:54:06 GMT2015-07-292015-07-29http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lain0no1Brian Willems is Assistant Professor at the University of Split, Croatia, where he teaches literature at the Faculty of Philosophy and film theory at the Arts Academy and his book Shooting the Moon was published in May this year from Zero Books.
Laurence A Rickels, author of Germany: A Science Fiction, blurbed the book this way
Shooting the Moon shows how our most abiding object or objective on reality’s horizon was overshot and displaced by the other reality of realization of our wish fantasies. When we ask for the moon we travel a jump cut from an idealized past to a future of wish fulfillment lying deep inside the film medium and its ongoing history.
In this episode you’ll hear a clip from Futurama, Slavoj Zizek explaining a bottle of tea, Chris “Isto” White singing the jazz standard “It's Only a Paper Moon,” The Evolution Control Committee's “The Fucking Moon,” a clip from the auralgraphic entertainment “Dreamies” by Bill Holt, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner performing in “The First Men in the Moon,” Doctor Who and the Monolith reversing the polarity of the neutron flow, Negativland, and in tribute to Don Joyce, one of "Crosley Bendix's" Arts Reviews. Brian Willems is Assistant Professor at the University of Split, Croatia, where he teaches litera...Zero Squared #28: Imaginary Games<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10770677.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Chris Bateman is a game designer, outsider philosopher and author. His book <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/imaginary-games">Imaginary Games</a> was published by Zero Books in 2011. Bateman is also the blogger behind <a href="http://onlyagame.typepad.com/">Only a Game</a> and he posts regularly in between writing how to manuals on game design and lecturing at the University of Bolton.
Jon Cogburn, Director of Philosophy at LSU blurbed Imaginary Games this way:
<em>Chris Bateman’s Imaginary Games may just do for videogames what Noël Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror did for scary books and movies.... not only philosophically compelling and interesting; it is also a great read. </em>
In this episode you’ll hear a rerun of a conversation about the movie Tron between me and my then thirteen year old son Ben, theme music from Super Smash Brothers Melee, Chad African explaining Zizek and his idea of ontological incompleteness, clips from a youtube documentary about smash, a short clip on Hegel from the 8-bit philosophy series, and the theme music from Super Mario Brothers.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-22T10_07_22-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-22T10_07_22-07_00Wed, 22 Jul 2015 17:07:22 GMT2015-07-292015-07-22http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lain2908no2Chris Bateman is a game designer, outsider philosopher and author. His book Imaginary Games was published by Zero Books in 2011. Bateman is also the blogger behind Only a Game and he posts regularly in between writing how to manuals on game design and lecturing at the University of Bolton.
Jon Cogburn, Director of Philosophy at LSU blurbed Imaginary Games this way:
Chris Bateman’s Imaginary Games may just do for videogames what Noël Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror did for scary books and movies.... not only philosophically compelling and interesting; it is also a great read.
In this episode you’ll hear a rerun of a conversation about the movie Tron between me and my then thirteen year old son Ben, theme music from Super Smash Brothers Melee, Chad African explaining Zizek and his idea of ontological incompleteness, clips from a youtube documentary about smash, a short clip on Hegel from the 8-bit philosophy series, and the theme music from Super Mario Brothers.
Chris Bateman is a game designer, outsider philosopher and author. His book Imaginary Games was p...Zero Squared #27: Writing Through Time <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10755603.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Rudy Rucker is the guest this week and we discuss his recently published book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Journals-1990-2014-Rudy-Rucker/dp/194094807X">Journals 1990-2014</a>. Rudy Rucker is a writer and a mathematician who spent 20 years as a Silicon Valley computer scientist. He's a contemporary master of science-fiction, and received the Philip K. Dick award twice. His 37 published books include novels and non-fiction books such as THE FOURTH DIMENSION. He composed Journals 1990-2014 over twenty-five years.
Rucker describes his process this way: <em>I turn to my journals when I’m undergoing a personal crisis—I find it calming to write what’s on my mind. And I'm always looking for an easy path to enlightenment...I like to describe the things that I see going on in the daily world around me. I’ve always enjoyed Jack Kerouac’s practice of using words to sketch a scene around me in real time.</em>
In this episode you’ll hear Richard Sandling as he describes doing stand up at a science fiction convention, a ukelele cover of the Star Trek theme, Rudy Rucker describing his novel Soft Ware, and Paradise 3001's Mondo 2000. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-15T10_30_10-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-07-15T10_30_10-07_00Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:30:10 GMT2015-07-292015-07-15http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainrudy,rucker,cyberpunk,mondo2000,90s,fiction,writing0no3Rudy Rucker is the guest this week and we discuss his recently published book Journals 1990-2014. Rudy Rucker is a writer and a mathematician who spent 20 years as a Silicon Valley computer scientist. He's a contemporary master of science-fiction, and received the Philip K. Dick award twice. His 37 published books include novels and non-fiction books such as THE FOURTH DIMENSION. He composed Journals 1990-2014 over twenty-five years.
Rucker describes his process this way: I turn to my journals when I’m undergoing a personal crisis—I find it calming to write what’s on my mind. And I'm always looking for an easy path to enlightenment...I like to describe the things that I see going on in the daily world around me. I’ve always enjoyed Jack Kerouac’s practice of using words to sketch a scene around me in real time.
In this episode you’ll hear Richard Sandling as he describes doing stand up at a science fiction convention, a ukelele cover of the Star Trek theme, Rudy Rucker describing his novel Soft Ware, and Paradise 3001's Mondo 2000. Rudy Rucker is the guest this week and we discuss his recently published book Journals 1990-2014....Zero Squared #25: A Diet of Austerity<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10723349.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Elaine Graham-Leigh is a the guest this week. She's a member of Counterfire and a former member of the steering committee of the Campaign against Climate Change. Her book A Diet of Austerity was published by Zero Books in April of this year.
Jonathan Neale, Author of Stop Global Warming, Change the World blurbed Elaine Graham-Leigh's book as follows:
<i>Who is to blame for climate change? Graham-Leigh says it's not fat people, cows or the working class. A challenging and interesting book, packed with new ideas to make you think again about what you thought you knew.</i>
In this episode you'll hear clips from a news report about Belgian Blue cows, a cow saying moo, dueling banjos from the film Deliverance, Brendan Cooney explaining Socially Necessary Labor Time, a nutrious breakfast torture collage, an instrumental cover of the protest standard “We Shall Overcome,” and an audio collage built on advertisements from the 70s, and Green Onions by Booker T and the MGS.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-30T23_59_17-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-30T23_59_17-07_00Wed, 01 Jul 2015 06:59:17 GMT2015-07-292015-07-01http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainclimate,change,austerity,class,war0no4Elaine Graham-Leigh is a the guest this week. She's a member of Counterfire and a former member of the steering committee of the Campaign against Climate Change. Her book A Diet of Austerity was published by Zero Books in April of this year.
Jonathan Neale, Author of Stop Global Warming, Change the World blurbed Elaine Graham-Leigh's book as follows:
Who is to blame for climate change? Graham-Leigh says it's not fat people, cows or the working class. A challenging and interesting book, packed with new ideas to make you think again about what you thought you knew.
In this episode you'll hear clips from a news report about Belgian Blue cows, a cow saying moo, dueling banjos from the film Deliverance, Brendan Cooney explaining Socially Necessary Labor Time, a nutrious breakfast torture collage, an instrumental cover of the protest standard “We Shall Overcome,” and an audio collage built on advertisements from the 70s, and Green Onions by Booker T and the MGS.Elaine Graham-Leigh is a the guest this week. She's a member of Counterfire and a former member o...Zero Squared #24: Open Thinking<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10713719.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />C Derick Varn is the guest this week and I'm reopening the old podomatic feed. If you are reading this and are glad to get this feed reopened please contact me through <a href="douglaslain.net">douglaslain.net</a> and let me know. Varn is a reader at Zero Books, a poet, and a University Lecturer and what we really discuss is an essay I wrote as a way to clear my head. This was a draft of an essay that will eventually end up on Truthdig, but which for now I’ll just include in this week’s shownotes. The title of the essay is Open Thinking vs. Praxis.
The music and voices you’ll hear in this episode will include Bryan Magee, Peter Singer, Pink Floyd on the Ukulele, a Ukulele version of the 1970 hit Popcorn by Hot Butter, Brendan Cooney, Anne Jaclard, Ricky Jervais, Stephen Merchant, Karl Pilkington, and Schoenberg’s 3 Piano Pieces.
Open Thinking or Praxis?
The purpose that has fallen to them in a society based on the division of labor may be questionable; they themselves may be deformed by it. – Theodore Adorno, Resignation
There is nothing easier than to type up a list of the dangers, inequities, and injustices that appear before us everyday. We can find such a list in the New York Times, on yahoo news, or on our Facebook newsfeed, and without even looking we already know that today the police have murdered another unarmed black man, that another frog or fish or insect has disappeared as climate change continues unabated, and that there are at least six different ways poor people are being screwed listed on Buzzfeed. So, given this is the case, given the need for radical social change is as pressing and evident as ever, it may seem a strange to suggest that the thing to do is to turn to philosophy, or to advocate for what Theodore Adorno called “open thinking.”
Still, this is what’s needed, precisely because, while another world may or may not be possible, the reasons to seek it abound. Philosophical thinking is necessary because only such open, undirected, impractical thought is free from the imperatives of the very system we’re attempting to change. Anything practical, any thought connected to action or politics, any position that appears to be obvious, already fits into the present system.
On May 29th, Christopher Hedges spoke at the Left Forum. He introduced a panel entitled “Why Marx Was Right” with some observations of his own about how capitalism is supported by ideologies that appear to be obvious because they are useful for the reproduction of the current “means of material production” already operating, and in this way serve the ruling elites who own and control these means.
Hedges began with a quote from the preface of Marx’s “The Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.”
No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself.
Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since looking at the matter more closely, we always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist, or are at least in the process of formation.
This would, on it’s face, appear to be an argument against “open thinking” or the posing of problems in the abstract apart from practical concerns or plans for action. However, such a simple reading of Marx would preclude social change from the start. In fact, reading this passage (and the rest of Marx for that matter) provides us with exactly the kind of opportunity for open thinking or free reasoning that is necessary for radical social change to have a chance.
Let us take a close look at this to see, first, what the passage means and then if it might be true.
No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed.
Historically this isn’t true. All one has to do is look back at the history of warfare and, even more, genocide to see that social orders disappear before marshalling all their productive forces. If we think of the American Indians, for instance, we can see that the social orders of various tribes were wiped out by European settlers and did not reach a moment of transformation wherein the productive forces of, say, the Apache had been fully developed. So the unstated assumption here is that we are speaking of social orders that are self-transforming, where the change arises out of the social order itself. Marx covers the other kind of change, the change wherein capitalism destroys another social order by force, in Capital Volume One, Chapter 26 when he writes on primitive accumulation, but in this preface he covers less ground and focuses his attention more narrowly as he sets up an examination of political economy in the abstract or on its own.
New higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself.
This seems quite obvious almost a truism. It is simply saying that you can’t make something out of nothing, or that what is materialy impossible is never realized in the world.
Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since looking at the matter more closely, we always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist, or are at least in the process of formation.
This follows from the truism that came before it, only it is important to mention at this stage that we’re not talking about ideologies, opinions, ideas but tasks, or more still modes of production. So this is not claiming that mankind never sets iself problems that it can solve, but that it never sets itself tasks that it can’t solve. Again, the keys here is that we’re working on the level of the total society never setting itself a collective task that it doesn’t have the ability to solve. A society does not invest its resources in preparing for a flights to the moon before there is any material basis for the building of rockets. Again, the key to this passage is the word task as opposed to thought.
So, this passage doesn’t quite close down the possibility of “open thinking” quite as completely as we might have at first concluded. Marx does not say that all ideas have to have a material basis before they can be thought up or worked out, but that societies don’t set themselves the task of solving problems in the world when those problems are entirely imaginary. Now, another word for a task that society has taken on, another word for these social formations or modes of production might be “praxis.”
Now, the temptation at this point would be to reduce the notion of a task or of praxis to the level of a simple thoughtless action, but this would be to tilt to far in the other direction. Marx is no more writing about action on its own than he is writing about thought on its own. These productive tasks are theoretical as well as practical. That’s what the word “praxis” points to. A praxis is the kinds of thought or problem that can be acted out or solved in the world.
“The chief defect of all materialism up to now (including Feuerbach’s) is that objective reality, what we apprehend through our senses, is understood only in the form of the OBJECT of contemplation; but not as SENSUOUS HUMAN ACTIVITY, as practice; not subjectively. Hence, in opposition to materialism, the ACTIVE side was developed abstractly by idealism… Feuerbach wants sensuous objects really distinguished from objects of thought but he does not understand human activity itself is OBJECTIVE activity.” –Karl Marx
Now it’s here that we might dare to speculate a bit more openly ourselves. That is, having determined that open thinking or philosophy as we’re calling it and pure action can be separated out in thought but can not be turned toward social tasks except when deployed together and, even then, only so much as the tasks or praxis develops materially we might pause to ask to what use can either side be put if kept in isolation? That is, why advocate for “open thinking” when such thought is one sided, atomized, and unreal?
The answer is that such open thinking has a function as critique. Open thinking or unrestricted reason would be purely negative, limiting, defining and describing the world and our struggles in it, up until the point as thought is seized by active forces and turned into the world.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-26T11_24_38-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-06-26T11_24_38-07_00Fri, 26 Jun 2015 18:24:38 GMT2015-07-292015-06-26http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,philosophy,varn,praxis,theory,practice0no5C Derick Varn is the guest this week and I'm reopening the old podomatic feed. If you are reading this and are glad to get this feed reopened please contact me through douglaslain.net and let me know. Varn is a reader at Zero Books, a poet, and a University Lecturer and what we really discuss is an essay I wrote as a way to clear my head. This was a draft of an essay that will eventually end up on Truthdig, but which for now I’ll just include in this week’s shownotes. The title of the essay is Open Thinking vs. Praxis.
The music and voices you’ll hear in this episode will include Bryan Magee, Peter Singer, Pink Floyd on the Ukulele, a Ukulele version of the 1970 hit Popcorn by Hot Butter, Brendan Cooney, Anne Jaclard, Ricky Jervais, Stephen Merchant, Karl Pilkington, and Schoenberg’s 3 Piano Pieces.
Open Thinking or Praxis?
The purpose that has fallen to them in a society based on the division of labor may be questionable; they themselves may be deformed by it. – Theodore Adorno, Resignation
There is nothing easier than to type up a list of the dangers, inequities, and injustices that appear before us everyday. We can find such a list in the New York Times, on yahoo news, or on our Facebook newsfeed, and without even looking we already know that today the police have murdered another unarmed black man, that another frog or fish or insect has disappeared as climate change continues unabated, and that there are at least six different ways poor people are being screwed listed on Buzzfeed. So, given this is the case, given the need for radical social change is as pressing and evident as ever, it may seem a strange to suggest that the thing to do is to turn to philosophy, or to advocate for what Theodore Adorno called “open thinking.”
Still, this is what’s needed, precisely because, while another world may or may not be possible, the reasons to seek it abound. Philosophical thinking is necessary because only such open, undirected, impractical thought is free from the imperatives of the very system we’re attempting to change. Anything practical, any thought connected to action or politics, any position that appears to be obvious, already fits into the present system.
On May 29th, Christopher Hedges spoke at the Left Forum. He introduced a panel entitled “Why Marx Was Right” with some observations of his own about how capitalism is supported by ideologies that appear to be obvious because they are useful for the reproduction of the current “means of material production” already operating, and in this way serve the ruling elites who own and control these means.
Hedges began with a quote from the preface of Marx’s “The Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.”
No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself.
Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since looking at the matter more closely, we always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist, or are at least in the process of formation.
This would, on it’s face, appear to be an argument against “open thinking” or the posing of problems in the abstract apart from practical concerns or plans for action. However, such a simple reading of Marx would preclude social change from the start. In fact, reading this passage (and the rest of Marx for that matter) provides us with exactly the kind of opportunity for open thinking or free reasoning that is necessary for radical social change to have a chance.
Let us take a close look at this to see, first, what the passage means and then if it might be true.
No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed.
Historic(continued)C Derick Varn is the guest this week and I'm reopening the old podomatic feed. If you are reading...This Isn't a Podcast but something else<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10603019.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Try <a href="http://douglaslain.net">douglaslain.com</a> or go to the <a href="http://zero-books.net/blogs/zero/">Zero Books blog</a>. There are podcasts there. Resubscribe through iTunes to either of those feeds. This feed is only going to be getting announcements like this one telling you to switch feeds. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-05-13T21_50_43-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-05-13T21_50_43-07_00Thu, 14 May 2015 04:50:43 GMT2015-07-292015-05-14http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lain0no6Try douglaslain.com or go to the Zero Books blog. There are podcasts there. Resubscribe through iTunes to either of those feeds. This feed is only going to be getting announcements like this one telling you to switch feeds. Try douglaslain.com or go to the Zero Books blog. There are podcasts there. Resubscribe through i...Zero Squared and Everything Else has Moved<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10595731.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The latest Zero Squared podcast isn't on this feed. Please go to <a href="http://douglaslain.net">douglaslain.com</a> and/or to the <a href="http://zero-books.net/blogs/zero">Zero Books Blog</a> or subscribe to <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/zero-squared/id958455905?mt=2">Zero Squared on iTunes</a> or to <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/douglaslain.com/id549012302?mt=2">douglaslain.com</a> on iTunes.
Three feeds is one too many, and while this is the most popular feed currently it still makes the most sense to move the podcast to these other feeds. If you like the show resubscribe to one of these other two feeds. Thanks.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-05-11T12_29_07-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-05-11T12_29_07-07_00Mon, 11 May 2015 19:29:07 GMT2015-07-292015-05-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lain0no7The latest Zero Squared podcast isn't on this feed. Please go to douglaslain.com and/or to the Zero Books Blog or subscribe to Zero Squared on iTunes or to douglaslain.com on iTunes.
Three feeds is one too many, and while this is the most popular feed currently it still makes the most sense to move the podcast to these other feeds. If you like the show resubscribe to one of these other two feeds. Thanks.The latest Zero Squared podcast isn't on this feed. Please go to douglaslain.com and/or to the Ze...Zero Squared #17: The Liminalist<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10563656.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="http://auticulture.com/">Jason Horsley</a> is the guest this week and we discuss his new podcast called The Liminalist. Jason Horsley is the author of several books including <em>Matrix Warrior</em>, <em>The Blood Poets</em>, and most recently <em>Seen and Not Seen</em> which came out from Zero Books in January.
Pauline Kael, the influential film critic for the New Yorker from 1968 to 1991, blurbed Horsley's book The Blood Poets. She wrote:
<em>This hothead fantasist offers the excitement of a wild, paranoid style. He lives in the movies, explodes them from the inside, and shares his fevered trance with us. But he doesn’t lose his analytic good sense. He’s not just a hothead, he’s a hardhead, too. . . . He’s a marvellous critic. Tackling a new movie, he’ll hang in there until he’s balanced and sound. It’s always a surprise.</em>
Horsley was, for a short while, my co-host on Zero Squared and I was pleased to speak to him again.
In this episode you’ll hear Bob Odenkirk imitating Charles Manson, the linguist John McWhorter discussing the strange history of the plural form in English, a couple of notes from the theme for the television show New Girl, the youtube star Ralph Skip Stevens describing Structuralism, the youtube star AlanKey86 with Auditory Illusion #3, and the audio track from promotional video from Utah.com called Four Corners: Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, and Pierre Schaeffer's Apostrophe.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-04-29T18_35_58-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-04-29T18_35_58-07_00Thu, 30 Apr 2015 01:35:58 GMT2015-07-292015-04-30http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainliminalism,horsley,surrealism,art,language0no8Jason Horsley is the guest this week and we discuss his new podcast called The Liminalist. Jason Horsley is the author of several books including Matrix Warrior, The Blood Poets, and most recently Seen and Not Seen which came out from Zero Books in January.
Pauline Kael, the influential film critic for the New Yorker from 1968 to 1991, blurbed Horsley's book The Blood Poets. She wrote:
This hothead fantasist offers the excitement of a wild, paranoid style. He lives in the movies, explodes them from the inside, and shares his fevered trance with us. But he doesn’t lose his analytic good sense. He’s not just a hothead, he’s a hardhead, too. . . . He’s a marvellous critic. Tackling a new movie, he’ll hang in there until he’s balanced and sound. It’s always a surprise.
Horsley was, for a short while, my co-host on Zero Squared and I was pleased to speak to him again.
In this episode you’ll hear Bob Odenkirk imitating Charles Manson, the linguist John McWhorter discussing the strange history of the plural form in English, a couple of notes from the theme for the television show New Girl, the youtube star Ralph Skip Stevens describing Structuralism, the youtube star AlanKey86 with Auditory Illusion #3, and the audio track from promotional video from Utah.com called Four Corners: Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, and Pierre Schaeffer's Apostrophe.Jason Horsley is the guest this week and we discuss his new podcast called The Liminalist. Jason ...Zero Squared #16: Drink the Rest of That<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10543464.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Guy J Jackson is the guest this week and we discuss his collection of short stories <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Drink-Rest-That-Short-Collection/dp/1782796355">Drink the Rest of That</a> which came out from Roundfire Books in January. <a href="http://www.roundfire-books.com/">Roundfire Books</a> is an imprint at John Hunt Publishing as is Zero Books. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Drink-Rest-That-Short-Collection/dp/1782796355">Drink the Rest of That</a> is a collection of shorts meant to be read “at a rate of one per day in order to feel Zen for however many days that there are stories, or so claimed Roundfire Book's late editorial assistant, Nils Samuels Chastain, even thought it wasn't his place to decide that.”
Nathan Penlington is the author of “Roadkill on the Digitial Highway” and a drinking buddy with Guy. He blurbed the collection as follows:
<em>Imagine if a Kurt Vonnegut/Richard Brautigan hybrid had written The Phantom Tollbooth and you are somewhat close to the uniqueness of this book. Drink The Rest of That is a dazzling, heartbreaking, laugh-a-loud collection that will leave you wanting more.</em>
I'm having a difficult time imagining such a creature myself. It sounds like something out of a Cronenberg movie.
It's Wednesday, April 22nd 2015 and I'm Douglas Lain the publisher of Zero Books and the host of this podcast.
In this episode you’ll hear a Christopher Knowles poem as recited by Robert Wilson, a Philip Glass style improvization by the youtube star Torley, train sounds and an excerpt from Paul Simon's song Ordinary Child from his Rhythm of the Saints which was the album I listened to on my Realistic brand Walkman when I first travelled by train from Colorado Springs to Portland Oregon back in 1991. The music you're listening to right now is the Soweto String Quartet's tribute to Paul Simon's Graceland, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Guy Jackson and I discuss why you should drink that.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-04-22T14_33_43-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-04-22T14_33_43-07_00Wed, 22 Apr 2015 21:33:43 GMT2015-07-292015-04-22http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainfiction,short,stories,guy,jackson,roundfire,books,comedy0no9Guy J Jackson is the guest this week and we discuss his collection of short stories Drink the Rest of That which came out from Roundfire Books in January. Roundfire Books is an imprint at John Hunt Publishing as is Zero Books. Drink the Rest of That is a collection of shorts meant to be read “at a rate of one per day in order to feel Zen for however many days that there are stories, or so claimed Roundfire Book's late editorial assistant, Nils Samuels Chastain, even thought it wasn't his place to decide that.”
Nathan Penlington is the author of “Roadkill on the Digitial Highway” and a drinking buddy with Guy. He blurbed the collection as follows:
Imagine if a Kurt Vonnegut/Richard Brautigan hybrid had written The Phantom Tollbooth and you are somewhat close to the uniqueness of this book. Drink The Rest of That is a dazzling, heartbreaking, laugh-a-loud collection that will leave you wanting more.
I'm having a difficult time imagining such a creature myself. It sounds like something out of a Cronenberg movie.
It's Wednesday, April 22nd 2015 and I'm Douglas Lain the publisher of Zero Books and the host of this podcast.
In this episode you’ll hear a Christopher Knowles poem as recited by Robert Wilson, a Philip Glass style improvization by the youtube star Torley, train sounds and an excerpt from Paul Simon's song Ordinary Child from his Rhythm of the Saints which was the album I listened to on my Realistic brand Walkman when I first travelled by train from Colorado Springs to Portland Oregon back in 1991. The music you're listening to right now is the Soweto String Quartet's tribute to Paul Simon's Graceland, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Guy Jackson and I discuss why you should drink that.
Guy J Jackson is the guest this week and we discuss his collection of short stories Drink the Res...Zero Squared #15: Twerking to Turking (EDA)<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10525178.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Alfie Bown is the guest this week and we discuss the book from the EDA Collective <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/twerking-turking">Twerking to Turking</a> which is coming from Zero Books this month. With the tag line: “Analysing the signs of everyday life” this is the second collection by the EDA. It is a follow-up to their book “Why Animals are funny.”
<strong>Jamie Mackay</strong>, writing for Review 31, praised the EDA, writing:
<em>It is not often that theory is this fun to read, and less often still that satire is so well versed in the language of its assailants.
</em>
It's Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 and I'm Douglas Lain the publisher of Zero Books and the host of this podcast.
In this episode you’ll hear a longish clip from <a href="http://www.radiolab.org/story/239549-yellow-rain/">Radiolab on the subject of Yellow Rain</a>. The podcast was originally aired on September 24th, 2012, and I'll provide links to it in the show notes. If you go to the site you'll find an apology from Robert Krulwich wherein he apologizes for the way he aggressively questioned the Mr Eng Yang regarding reports that “yellow rain” was used on people in Laos after American forces left Vietnam. I want to make clear that, in my opinion, Robert Krulwich should not have apologized. If the oppressed of the Earth are going to find a voice that matters they will, simultaneously, have to be open to the truth and to pursuing the truth. This will require transcending their own experiences even as they act in their own collective interest.
You'll also hear clips of Philip Glass's Photographer, an excerpt from a documentary about Audrey Hepburn entitled “World's Most Photographed Woman,” the comedian Godfrey Chi, Phlearn Photoshop's “The Basics of Studium and Punctum in Photographs,” and "Got a Good Thing Going" by the Beetletown Players and Mister Show.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-04-15T22_36_50-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-04-15T22_36_50-07_00Thu, 16 Apr 2015 05:36:50 GMT2015-07-292015-04-16http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainturking,twerking,critical,theory,philosophy,literature0no10Alfie Bown is the guest this week and we discuss the book from the EDA Collective Twerking to Turking which is coming from Zero Books this month. With the tag line: “Analysing the signs of everyday life” this is the second collection by the EDA. It is a follow-up to their book “Why Animals are funny.”
Jamie Mackay, writing for Review 31, praised the EDA, writing:
It is not often that theory is this fun to read, and less often still that satire is so well versed in the language of its assailants.
It's Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 and I'm Douglas Lain the publisher of Zero Books and the host of this podcast.
In this episode you’ll hear a longish clip from Radiolab on the subject of Yellow Rain. The podcast was originally aired on September 24th, 2012, and I'll provide links to it in the show notes. If you go to the site you'll find an apology from Robert Krulwich wherein he apologizes for the way he aggressively questioned the Mr Eng Yang regarding reports that “yellow rain” was used on people in Laos after American forces left Vietnam. I want to make clear that, in my opinion, Robert Krulwich should not have apologized. If the oppressed of the Earth are going to find a voice that matters they will, simultaneously, have to be open to the truth and to pursuing the truth. This will require transcending their own experiences even as they act in their own collective interest.
You'll also hear clips of Philip Glass's Photographer, an excerpt from a documentary about Audrey Hepburn entitled “World's Most Photographed Woman,” the comedian Godfrey Chi, Phlearn Photoshop's “The Basics of Studium and Punctum in Photographs,” and "Got a Good Thing Going" by the Beetletown Players and Mister Show.Alfie Bown is the guest this week and we discuss the book from the EDA Collective Twerking to Tur...Zero Squared #14: Nihilism and Reason<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10504154.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Eugene Thacker is the guest this week and we discuss his Horror of Philosophy series, two new volumes of which ( <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/tentacles-longer-night">Tentacles Longer than Night</a> and <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/starry-speculative-corpse">Starry Speculative Corpse</a>) are coming from Zero Books on April 24th. In these book Thacker, instead of taking fiction as the mere illustration of ideas, he reads horror stories as if they themselves were works of philosophy.
The horror author Thomas Ligotti praised Thacker’s first volume, <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/in-the-dust-of-this-planet">In The Dust of this Planet</a>. He wrote:
<em>Thacker's discourse on the intersection of horror and philosophy is utterly original and utterly captivating...<a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/in-the-dust-of-this-planet">In the Dust of This Planet</a> is an encyclopedic grimoire instructing us in the varieties of esoteric thought and infernal diversions that exist for the reader’s further investigation, treating us to a delightful stroll down a midway of accursed attractions that alone are worth the ticket of this volume.</em>
In this episode you’ll hear a clip from the Laverne and Shirley, Rick and Morty, Rick Roderick, Bryan Magee and Bernard Williams on Descartes, Laurie Anderson, Kraftwerk, a reading from the Gideon bible, the theme from True Detective, and the opening music from Mister Show.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-04-08T09_18_11-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-04-08T09_18_11-07_00Wed, 08 Apr 2015 16:18:11 GMT2015-07-292015-04-08http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainthacker,nihilism,abyss,horror,philosophy,stoicism,pessimism,skepticism0no11Eugene Thacker is the guest this week and we discuss his Horror of Philosophy series, two new volumes of which ( Tentacles Longer than Night and Starry Speculative Corpse) are coming from Zero Books on April 24th. In these book Thacker, instead of taking fiction as the mere illustration of ideas, he reads horror stories as if they themselves were works of philosophy.
The horror author Thomas Ligotti praised Thacker’s first volume, In The Dust of this Planet. He wrote:
Thacker's discourse on the intersection of horror and philosophy is utterly original and utterly captivating...In the Dust of This Planet is an encyclopedic grimoire instructing us in the varieties of esoteric thought and infernal diversions that exist for the reader’s further investigation, treating us to a delightful stroll down a midway of accursed attractions that alone are worth the ticket of this volume.
In this episode you’ll hear a clip from the Laverne and Shirley, Rick and Morty, Rick Roderick, Bryan Magee and Bernard Williams on Descartes, Laurie Anderson, Kraftwerk, a reading from the Gideon bible, the theme from True Detective, and the opening music from Mister Show.Eugene Thacker is the guest this week and we discuss his Horror of Philosophy series, two new vol...Zero Squared #13: Heavy Radicals<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10486078.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="http://www.aaronleonard.net/">Aaron Leonard</a> is the guest this week and we discuss his book <b>Heavy Radicals</b> which was published by Zero Books in February. With the subtile: <i>The FBI's Secret War on America's Maoists</i>, Aaron Leonard's book covers Maoism in America from the 60s through to 1980.
Sarah Khan at the Washington Book Review praised the book.
“Heavy Radicals is an excellent addition to the literature on the history of revolutionary groups which played important roles in the 1960s and 1970s. It is the first comprehensive and complete history of ... the Revolutionary Union. It is a well-researched book which fills the gap created by the absence of historical literature on an important period in the history of the United States.”
In this episode you’ll hear a clips from Bob Avakian, the American propaganda film “What is Communism,” the 1963 instrumental hit Pipeline by the Chantays, Mario Savio at Sproul Hall in 1964, Andrew Kliman, a String Quartet cover of Jefferson Airplane's “White Rabbit” and the aria “I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung” from John Adam's opera Nixon in China as well as John Adams' “The Chairman Dances.”
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-04-01T13_42_12-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-04-01T13_42_12-07_00Wed, 01 Apr 2015 20:42:12 GMT2015-07-292015-04-01http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,maoism,history,sixties,revolutionary,fbi0no12Aaron Leonard is the guest this week and we discuss his book Heavy Radicals which was published by Zero Books in February. With the subtile: The FBI's Secret War on America's Maoists, Aaron Leonard's book covers Maoism in America from the 60s through to 1980.
Sarah Khan at the Washington Book Review praised the book.
“Heavy Radicals is an excellent addition to the literature on the history of revolutionary groups which played important roles in the 1960s and 1970s. It is the first comprehensive and complete history of ... the Revolutionary Union. It is a well-researched book which fills the gap created by the absence of historical literature on an important period in the history of the United States.”
In this episode you’ll hear a clips from Bob Avakian, the American propaganda film “What is Communism,” the 1963 instrumental hit Pipeline by the Chantays, Mario Savio at Sproul Hall in 1964, Andrew Kliman, a String Quartet cover of Jefferson Airplane's “White Rabbit” and the aria “I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung” from John Adam's opera Nixon in China as well as John Adams' “The Chairman Dances.”
Aaron Leonard is the guest this week and we discuss his book Heavy Radicals which was published b...Zero Squared #12: Rebel Rebel<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10464910.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Chris O'Leary is the guest this week and we discuss his book <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/rebel-rebel">Rebel Rebel</a> which is coming from Zero Books in two days. With the tag line: “Every single song. Everything you want to know, everything you didn't know” the book catalogs all of Bowie's songs from 1964 through 1976.
The Cultural Critic Mark Dery (author of <a href="http://boingboing.net/2013/06/04/all-the-young-dudes-why-glam.html">All the Young Dudes:Why Glam Rock Matters</a>) sent me a blurb for O'Leary and I'll read it now:
<em>Marooned in '70s suburbia, I and countless weirdos like me awaited every new Bowie record as a deep-space ping from a world where weird ruled—proof that there really was life on Mars, if not in tract-home sprawl. To date, what passes for thoughtful inquiry into the polymorphous, polyvalent phenomenon that is David Bowie has consisted almost entirely of potted biographies and coffee-table photo albums. At last, the Homo Superior gets the exegesis he deserves: Rebel Rebel is the Lipstick Traces of Bowie studies, and Chris O'Leary its unchallenged dean.</em>
I should also point out that you can win a copy of O'Leary's book by entering the <a href="http://davidbowienews.com/2015/03/coming-soon-your-chance-to-win-new-book-rebel-rebel-by-chris-oleary/">fictional Bowie lyric contest at DavidBowieNews.com</a>, and I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
In this episode you’ll hear a clip from the Chris Hadfield on the International Space Station, a clip of a cover of Kim Wilyde's The Kids in America done by Nirvana, David Bowie with Bing Crosby from Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas, an Andy Warhol/David Bowie interview juxtaposition and Bowie's Warszawa played on a Minimoog by the youtube star orchestron.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-25T13_14_15-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-25T13_14_15-07_00Wed, 25 Mar 2015 20:14:15 GMT2015-07-292015-03-25http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainbowie,pop,criticism,warhol,music0no13Chris O'Leary is the guest this week and we discuss his book Rebel Rebel which is coming from Zero Books in two days. With the tag line: “Every single song. Everything you want to know, everything you didn't know” the book catalogs all of Bowie's songs from 1964 through 1976.
The Cultural Critic Mark Dery (author of All the Young Dudes:Why Glam Rock Matters) sent me a blurb for O'Leary and I'll read it now:
Marooned in '70s suburbia, I and countless weirdos like me awaited every new Bowie record as a deep-space ping from a world where weird ruled—proof that there really was life on Mars, if not in tract-home sprawl. To date, what passes for thoughtful inquiry into the polymorphous, polyvalent phenomenon that is David Bowie has consisted almost entirely of potted biographies and coffee-table photo albums. At last, the Homo Superior gets the exegesis he deserves: Rebel Rebel is the Lipstick Traces of Bowie studies, and Chris O'Leary its unchallenged dean.
I should also point out that you can win a copy of O'Leary's book by entering the fictional Bowie lyric contest at DavidBowieNews.com, and I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
In this episode you’ll hear a clip from the Chris Hadfield on the International Space Station, a clip of a cover of Kim Wilyde's The Kids in America done by Nirvana, David Bowie with Bing Crosby from Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas, an Andy Warhol/David Bowie interview juxtaposition and Bowie's Warszawa played on a Minimoog by the youtube star orchestron.Chris O'Leary is the guest this week and we discuss his book Rebel Rebel which is coming from Zer...Announcement: Your Podcast isn't here<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10453325.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Please check out the new Double Feature Review podcast over at <a href="http://douglaslain.net">douglaslain.com</a>. Jim Farris and I review and argue about Cary Grant's films His Girl Friday and Mister Blanding Builds his Dream House.
This podomatic feed is being slowly retired, but new podcasts are coming. Please do check them out.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-21T14_07_44-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-21T14_07_44-07_00Sat, 21 Mar 2015 21:07:44 GMT2015-07-292015-03-21http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lain0no14Please check out the new Double Feature Review podcast over at douglaslain.com. Jim Farris and I review and argue about Cary Grant's films His Girl Friday and Mister Blanding Builds his Dream House.
This podomatic feed is being slowly retired, but new podcasts are coming. Please do check them out.Please check out the new Double Feature Review podcast over at douglaslain.com. Jim Farris and I ...Zero Squared #11: Marxist Entertainment<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10443872.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="http://akliman.squarespace.com/">Andrew Kliman</a> is the guest this week and we discuss his essay at the New Left Project entitled “Harvey Versus Marx On Capitalism’s Crises Part 1: Getting Marx Wrong.” The Harvey in this essay is the prominent Marxist Geographer David Harvey and not Harvey the rabbit, just in case you're wondering.
It's Wednesday, March 18th, 2015 and I'm Douglas Lain the publisher of Zero Books and the host of this podcast.
In the last week or so I've talked to several Zero Authors including Chris O'Leary (author of Rebel Rebel) and Eugene Thacker (author of In the Dust of this Planet, Starry Speculative Corpse, and Tentacles Longer than Night). In the weeks to come I hope to talk to Aaron Leonard (co-author of Heavy Radicals: The FBIs secret war on American Maoists) as well as Daniela Cascella (author of Footnotes, Mirages, Refrains and Leftovers of Writing Sound), Robert Jackson (author of Bioshock) and many, many others.
In this episode you’ll be hearing clips from the Big Chill, Slavoj Zizek, Brendan Cooney, Nirvana and the Piano Cat, a clip from Tom O'Brien's interview with Thom Workman, the history of cell phone commercials, and an instrumental version of a Whiter Shade of Pale. Right now you're listening to the theme from Groucho Marx's “You Bet Your Life” but in just a moment you'll be listening to Brendan Cooney explaining the Declining Rate of Profit and then you'll hear Andrew Kliman and I discuss Marxist Entertainment. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-17T22_18_39-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-17T22_18_39-07_00Wed, 18 Mar 2015 05:18:39 GMT2015-07-292015-03-18http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,philosophy,harvey,kliman,entertainment0no15Andrew Kliman is the guest this week and we discuss his essay at the New Left Project entitled “Harvey Versus Marx On Capitalism’s Crises Part 1: Getting Marx Wrong.” The Harvey in this essay is the prominent Marxist Geographer David Harvey and not Harvey the rabbit, just in case you're wondering.
It's Wednesday, March 18th, 2015 and I'm Douglas Lain the publisher of Zero Books and the host of this podcast.
In the last week or so I've talked to several Zero Authors including Chris O'Leary (author of Rebel Rebel) and Eugene Thacker (author of In the Dust of this Planet, Starry Speculative Corpse, and Tentacles Longer than Night). In the weeks to come I hope to talk to Aaron Leonard (co-author of Heavy Radicals: The FBIs secret war on American Maoists) as well as Daniela Cascella (author of Footnotes, Mirages, Refrains and Leftovers of Writing Sound), Robert Jackson (author of Bioshock) and many, many others.
In this episode you’ll be hearing clips from the Big Chill, Slavoj Zizek, Brendan Cooney, Nirvana and the Piano Cat, a clip from Tom O'Brien's interview with Thom Workman, the history of cell phone commercials, and an instrumental version of a Whiter Shade of Pale. Right now you're listening to the theme from Groucho Marx's “You Bet Your Life” but in just a moment you'll be listening to Brendan Cooney explaining the Declining Rate of Profit and then you'll hear Andrew Kliman and I discuss Marxist Entertainment. Andrew Kliman is the guest this week and we discuss his essay at the New Left Project entitled “H...Zero Squared #10: Night of the World<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10424581.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="http://www.zero-books.net/authors/frank-smecker">Frank Smecker</a> is the guest this week and we discuss his book Night of the World which came out from Zero Books in 2014. Todd McGowan (author of Enjoying What We Don't Have: The Political Project of Psychoanalysis) blurbed the book. He wrote:
<i>Night of the World seamlessly weaves through complex philosophical conjunctions and cultural practices in order to articulate a theory of ideology for today's world.</i>
From the Jacket:
<b>By situating objectivity at the level of ideology, while placing it within a dynamic, experimental and, at times, unorthodox interplay with Hegelian and Lacanian philosophy, The Night of the World offers a unique and radical re-thinking of objectivity. Encompassing a constellational array of wide-ranging subjects, from popular culture, politics, history, science, and philosophy, while deploying an engaging prose that is both incisive and seamlessly tangential, Smecker is both an ally with, and emerging voice in, the field of Zizekian dialectics. Incorporating Zizek's philosophy, Smecker speculates over both objectivity and ideology, evoking methods of thought not so prevalent since German Idealism was all the rage. In the spirit of Kierkegaard, The Night of the World is the result of an imaginative hypothesis. And that is only the half of it. Written in a style that will undoubtedly leave the reader itching to read it again once finished, The Night of the World is an ongoing engagement with an abundance of additional postulations, whose sole purpose is to produce more products of thought.</b>
In this episode you’ll be hearing from Chad African, Doctor Who, Wolfman Jack, Richard Dreyfus, the cast of the pilot episode of Star Trek (including Leonard Nimoy as an emotional seeming Spock), and Nik Walton's improvized loop Diggin Dug. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-11T09_30_50-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-11T09_30_50-07_00Wed, 11 Mar 2015 16:30:50 GMT2015-07-292015-03-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,zizek,descartes,subject,ideology0no16Frank Smecker is the guest this week and we discuss his book Night of the World which came out from Zero Books in 2014. Todd McGowan (author of Enjoying What We Don't Have: The Political Project of Psychoanalysis) blurbed the book. He wrote:
Night of the World seamlessly weaves through complex philosophical conjunctions and cultural practices in order to articulate a theory of ideology for today's world.
From the Jacket:
By situating objectivity at the level of ideology, while placing it within a dynamic, experimental and, at times, unorthodox interplay with Hegelian and Lacanian philosophy, The Night of the World offers a unique and radical re-thinking of objectivity. Encompassing a constellational array of wide-ranging subjects, from popular culture, politics, history, science, and philosophy, while deploying an engaging prose that is both incisive and seamlessly tangential, Smecker is both an ally with, and emerging voice in, the field of Zizekian dialectics. Incorporating Zizek's philosophy, Smecker speculates over both objectivity and ideology, evoking methods of thought not so prevalent since German Idealism was all the rage. In the spirit of Kierkegaard, The Night of the World is the result of an imaginative hypothesis. And that is only the half of it. Written in a style that will undoubtedly leave the reader itching to read it again once finished, The Night of the World is an ongoing engagement with an abundance of additional postulations, whose sole purpose is to produce more products of thought.
In this episode you’ll be hearing from Chad African, Doctor Who, Wolfman Jack, Richard Dreyfus, the cast of the pilot episode of Star Trek (including Leonard Nimoy as an emotional seeming Spock), and Nik Walton's improvized loop Diggin Dug. Frank Smecker is the guest this week and we discuss his book Night of the World which came out fr...Your New Podcast Isn't Here<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10409603.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Please check out the new Double Feature Review podcast over at <a href="http://douglaslain.net">douglaslain.com</a>. Jim Farris and I review and rant about Bobby Deerfield and Thunder Alley, two race car movies from the seventies and the sixties respectively. And if you're looking for the new Diet Soap Audio Collage Podcast, you'll find that next week at <a href="http://douglaslain.net">douglaslain.com</a>.
This podomatic feed is being slowly retired, but new podcasts are coming. Please do check them out.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-05T22_18_58-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-05T22_18_58-08_00Fri, 06 Mar 2015 06:18:58 GMT2015-07-292015-03-06http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lain0no17Please check out the new Double Feature Review podcast over at douglaslain.com. Jim Farris and I review and rant about Bobby Deerfield and Thunder Alley, two race car movies from the seventies and the sixties respectively. And if you're looking for the new Diet Soap Audio Collage Podcast, you'll find that next week at douglaslain.com.
This podomatic feed is being slowly retired, but new podcasts are coming. Please do check them out.Please check out the new Double Feature Review podcast over at douglaslain.com. Jim Farris and I ...Zero Squared #9: Magic Tricks and the Big Other<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10402999.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="http://peterrollins.net/">Peter Rollins</a> is the guest this week and we discuss his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1451609043/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1451609043&linkCode=as2&tag=peteroll-20&linkId=RJ3U63T2G6OI2UKM">The Divine Magician: The Disappearance of Religion and the Discovery of Faith</a> which came out from Howard Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, in January of this year (2015). Rob Bell, the author of Velvet Elvis, blurbed the book this way: What Pete does in this book is take you to the edge of a cliff where you can see how high you are and how far you would fall if you lost your footing. And just when most writers would kindly pull you back from the edge, he pushes you off, and you find yourself without any solid footing, disoriented, and in a bit of a panic...until you realize that your fall is in fact, a form of flying. And it's thrilling.
The two new titles from Zero Books this month are Rebel Rebel by Chris O’Leary and No More Heroes by Carl Neville. Chris O’Leary will be on the podcast in two weeks to discuss that Space Oddity who is known as David Bowie and there is also going to be a contest at davidbowienews.com. I'll let you know about that and how you might win a free copy of the book in the weeks to come.
I want to mention the passing of Leonard Nimoy. As some of you might know I've been working on a book about Star Trek and Hegel's approach to the dialectic for a couple of years now, or more accurately I've not been working on it. The original title of that book was “Star Trek is the true religion.” I'm saddened by the passing of Leonard Nimoy. I feel similarly to how I felt when Johnny Carson died, only more so. In a way the death of Leonard Nimoy is like the death of Ronald McDonald. It feels like something that wasn't supposed to happen.
In this episode you’ll be hearing from a youtube magician, a clip from the David Fincher movie The Game, from the Woody Allen movie The Purple Rose of Cairo, from a lecture by the death of God theologian Thomas Altizer, from Late Nite from David Letterman, and from the album <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C70QRbawN8">Mister Spock's Music from Outer Space,</a> but in just a moment you'll be hearing Peter Rollins and I discuss Magic Tricks and The Big Other. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-03T22_41_49-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-03-03T22_41_49-08_00Wed, 04 Mar 2015 06:41:49 GMT2015-07-292015-03-04http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainrollins,christianity,lacan,zizek,religion,faith,radical0no18Peter Rollins is the guest this week and we discuss his book The Divine Magician: The Disappearance of Religion and the Discovery of Faith which came out from Howard Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, in January of this year (2015). Rob Bell, the author of Velvet Elvis, blurbed the book this way: What Pete does in this book is take you to the edge of a cliff where you can see how high you are and how far you would fall if you lost your footing. And just when most writers would kindly pull you back from the edge, he pushes you off, and you find yourself without any solid footing, disoriented, and in a bit of a panic...until you realize that your fall is in fact, a form of flying. And it's thrilling.
The two new titles from Zero Books this month are Rebel Rebel by Chris O’Leary and No More Heroes by Carl Neville. Chris O’Leary will be on the podcast in two weeks to discuss that Space Oddity who is known as David Bowie and there is also going to be a contest at davidbowienews.com. I'll let you know about that and how you might win a free copy of the book in the weeks to come.
I want to mention the passing of Leonard Nimoy. As some of you might know I've been working on a book about Star Trek and Hegel's approach to the dialectic for a couple of years now, or more accurately I've not been working on it. The original title of that book was “Star Trek is the true religion.” I'm saddened by the passing of Leonard Nimoy. I feel similarly to how I felt when Johnny Carson died, only more so. In a way the death of Leonard Nimoy is like the death of Ronald McDonald. It feels like something that wasn't supposed to happen.
In this episode you’ll be hearing from a youtube magician, a clip from the David Fincher movie The Game, from the Woody Allen movie The Purple Rose of Cairo, from a lecture by the death of God theologian Thomas Altizer, from Late Nite from David Letterman, and from the album Mister Spock's Music from Outer Space, but in just a moment you'll be hearing Peter Rollins and I discuss Magic Tricks and The Big Other. Peter Rollins is the guest this week and we discuss his book The Divine Magician: The Disappearan...Zero Squared #8: Dispirited (how spirituality makes us stupid)<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10383599.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />David Webster is the guest this week and we discuss his book <a href="http://dispirited.org/">Dispirited: How Contemporary Spirituality Makes Us Stupid, Selfish, and Unhappy</a> which came out from Zero Books in 2012. Dr Mikael Askander blurbed the book. He wrote: <i>Annoyed by the phrase 'I am not religious, but I’m very spiritual', Dr. David Webster successfully maps out the problems and contradictions it leads to. This is as close to a 'must read' as it gets, for the religious as well as the spiritual reader, as well as for atheists.</i>
Zero Books has titles coming next month: <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/rebel-rebel">Rebel Rebel</a> by Chris O’Leary and <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/no-more-heroes">No More Heroes by Carl Neville</a>. Chris O’Leary’s book Rebel Rebel has been getting some attention. It's a big book on David Bowie, O’Leary runs a blog called Pushing Ahead of the Dame about David Bowie, and he’ll be a guest on Zero Squared soon.
The Radical Theologian Peter Rollins is also coming soon to Zero Squared. I believe my conversation with him will be online next week as we're scheduled to talk this Friday.
In this episode you’ll be hearing Shirley MacLaine , Johnny Carson, Robert Solomon, the narrator for the instructional video Spiritual Reality, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Steven Shakespeare, Peter Rollins, the Dunkin Donuts guy, Frank Sinatra, the group XTC, the theme from Waking Life, the music of Delia Derbyshire, the soundtrack for the film CQ, and some radio static.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-02-25T13_17_35-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-02-25T13_17_35-08_00Wed, 25 Feb 2015 21:17:35 GMT2015-07-292015-02-25http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainspirituality,philosophy,community,death,meaning0no19David Webster is the guest this week and we discuss his book Dispirited: How Contemporary Spirituality Makes Us Stupid, Selfish, and Unhappy which came out from Zero Books in 2012. Dr Mikael Askander blurbed the book. He wrote: Annoyed by the phrase 'I am not religious, but I’m very spiritual', Dr. David Webster successfully maps out the problems and contradictions it leads to. This is as close to a 'must read' as it gets, for the religious as well as the spiritual reader, as well as for atheists.
Zero Books has titles coming next month: Rebel Rebel by Chris O’Leary and No More Heroes by Carl Neville. Chris O’Leary’s book Rebel Rebel has been getting some attention. It's a big book on David Bowie, O’Leary runs a blog called Pushing Ahead of the Dame about David Bowie, and he’ll be a guest on Zero Squared soon.
The Radical Theologian Peter Rollins is also coming soon to Zero Squared. I believe my conversation with him will be online next week as we're scheduled to talk this Friday.
In this episode you’ll be hearing Shirley MacLaine , Johnny Carson, Robert Solomon, the narrator for the instructional video Spiritual Reality, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Steven Shakespeare, Peter Rollins, the Dunkin Donuts guy, Frank Sinatra, the group XTC, the theme from Waking Life, the music of Delia Derbyshire, the soundtrack for the film CQ, and some radio static.
David Webster is the guest this week and we discuss his book Dispirited: How Contemporary Spiritu...Zero Squared #7: The Age of Nixon<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10360558.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Carl Freedman is the guest this week and we discuss his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Age-Nixon-Study-Cultural/dp/1846949432">The Age of Nixon</a> which came out from Zero Books in 2012. The iconic Grand Master of science fiction Samuel R. Delany blurbed the book. He wrote: <i>Nixon continues to fascinate us, and to haunt our dreams, even these many years after his death. Carl Freedman's compelling book takes the full measure of Nixon the man, Nixon the media image, Nixon the myth, and even Nixon the ideal type, the quintessential expression, and the most capacious representative of the political and economic system under which we continue to live today.</i>
I should mention again there are two new Zero Books titles coming next month: Rebel Rebel by Chris O'Leary and No More Heroes by Carl Neville. Chris O'Leary's book Rebel Rebel is a big book on David Bowie, O'Leary runs a blog called Pushing Ahead of the Dame about David Bowie, and he'll be a guest on Zero Squared soon.
In this episode you'll be hearing the from Bill Murray, Steve Allen, David Frye, and former President Richard Nixon. You'll also hear the piano music of Richard Nixon, and a clip from Futurama. The music you're listening to right now is Jo Ann Castle on the Lawrence Welk Show playing Piano Roll Blues as heard through the dialectic but in just a moment you'll be listening to Carl Freedman and I discussing the Age of Nixon. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-02-18T00_29_07-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-02-18T00_29_07-08_00Wed, 18 Feb 2015 08:29:07 GMT2015-07-292015-02-18http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainnixon,psychoanalysis,politics,history0no20Carl Freedman is the guest this week and we discuss his book The Age of Nixon which came out from Zero Books in 2012. The iconic Grand Master of science fiction Samuel R. Delany blurbed the book. He wrote: Nixon continues to fascinate us, and to haunt our dreams, even these many years after his death. Carl Freedman's compelling book takes the full measure of Nixon the man, Nixon the media image, Nixon the myth, and even Nixon the ideal type, the quintessential expression, and the most capacious representative of the political and economic system under which we continue to live today.
I should mention again there are two new Zero Books titles coming next month: Rebel Rebel by Chris O'Leary and No More Heroes by Carl Neville. Chris O'Leary's book Rebel Rebel is a big book on David Bowie, O'Leary runs a blog called Pushing Ahead of the Dame about David Bowie, and he'll be a guest on Zero Squared soon.
In this episode you'll be hearing the from Bill Murray, Steve Allen, David Frye, and former President Richard Nixon. You'll also hear the piano music of Richard Nixon, and a clip from Futurama. The music you're listening to right now is Jo Ann Castle on the Lawrence Welk Show playing Piano Roll Blues as heard through the dialectic but in just a moment you'll be listening to Carl Freedman and I discussing the Age of Nixon. Carl Freedman is the guest this week and we discuss his book The Age of Nixon which came out from...Zero Squared #6: Cultural Marxism? <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10339871.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="https://skepoet.wordpress.com/">C Derick Varn</a> is the guest this week. Varn is a reader at Zero Books, a University lecturer and teacher currently living in Mexico, and my co-host on the Pop the Left podcast. In this episode of Zero Squared we briefly discuss his new podcast <a href="http://sympthomaticredness.libsyn.com/prepisode-one-interview-with-tom-obrien">Symptomatic Redness</a> and then discuss the notion of Cultural Marxism. Cultural Marxism is, as Varn puts it, a concept and misunderstanding held by paleo-conservatives and fascists, it's the term the far right deploys to describe a mishmash of often contradictory thinkers and concepts, including thinkers from the Frankfurt School, Gramsci, Lukas, and late 20th century feminist thinkers and “stand point” epistemologists.
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There are several titles in production now for April. Eugene Thacker has two more Horror and Philosophy books coming after his success with “In the Dust of this Planet,” and Justin Barton's book “Hidden Valleys: Haunted by the Future” is due out as well. Barton's book suggests that the future is always alongside us, sometimes closer, sometimes further away, which I guess means that all six titles due out in April are, in a sense, already here.
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You'll here the voices of Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Rick Roderick, Suey Park, Laurie Penny, Nikita Kruschev, and Che Guevara. You'll also hear the music of Theodore Adorno, reedited sounds from Mungo Jerry's hit “In the Summertime,”some Calliope Music, as well as the theme from Rick and Morty as run backwards through the dialectic.
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At the start of the podcast you'll hear a few minutes from a youtube video about the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghx3d1GiAc0">Frankfurt School and Cultural Marxism</a>, but it doesn't last too long.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-02-11T00_14_21-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-02-11T00_14_21-08_00Wed, 11 Feb 2015 08:14:21 GMT2015-07-292015-02-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,zero,surrealism,collage,marxism,noise0no21C Derick Varn is the guest this week. Varn is a reader at Zero Books, a University lecturer and teacher currently living in Mexico, and my co-host on the Pop the Left podcast. In this episode of Zero Squared we briefly discuss his new podcast Symptomatic Redness and then discuss the notion of Cultural Marxism. Cultural Marxism is, as Varn puts it, a concept and misunderstanding held by paleo-conservatives and fascists, it's the term the far right deploys to describe a mishmash of often contradictory thinkers and concepts, including thinkers from the Frankfurt School, Gramsci, Lukas, and late 20th century feminist thinkers and “stand point” epistemologists.
There are several titles in production now for April. Eugene Thacker has two more Horror and Philosophy books coming after his success with “In the Dust of this Planet,” and Justin Barton's book “Hidden Valleys: Haunted by the Future” is due out as well. Barton's book suggests that the future is always alongside us, sometimes closer, sometimes further away, which I guess means that all six titles due out in April are, in a sense, already here.
You'll here the voices of Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Rick Roderick, Suey Park, Laurie Penny, Nikita Kruschev, and Che Guevara. You'll also hear the music of Theodore Adorno, reedited sounds from Mungo Jerry's hit “In the Summertime,”some Calliope Music, as well as the theme from Rick and Morty as run backwards through the dialectic.
At the start of the podcast you'll hear a few minutes from a youtube video about the Frankfurt School and Cultural Marxism, but it doesn't last too long.C Derick Varn is the guest this week. Varn is a reader at Zero Books, a University lecturer and t...Zero Squared #5: Darwin and the Death of God<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10319057.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />James Morrow is the guest this week. Morrow is a novelist and literary science fiction writer whose most well known work is probably the novel Towing Jehovah and this week we discuss his newest book, out from St. Martin's Press, <a href="http://jamesmorrow.info/novels/galapagos-regained/">Galapagos Regained</a>. Publisher's Weekly described this new novel as "a comic blend of Victorian science colliding with Christian faith as greedy folks enter the Percy Shelley Society’s “Great God Contest” to win a hefty cash prize." And in this episode we discuss atheism, humanism, Darwin as well as the death of God, Peter Rollins, Slavoj Zizek (of course), and the difference between symbolism and allegory.
In podcast news Jasun Horsley has set sail and taken his liminal corner into its own space and own feed. His new podcast is called the <a href="http://auticulture.com/liminalist/">Liminal Criminal</a>.
News from Zero Books includes the recent publication of three new titles: Horsley's "<a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/seen-not-seen">Seen and Not Seen</a>," David Winter's "<a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/infinite-fictions">Infinite Fiction</a>," and Phil Knight's "<a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/strangled">Strangled</a>." Strangled is about the punk band The Stranglers. These three titles arrived on January 30th.
The music in this episode includes musical doodles from Dan Lett, a work in progress from Nik Walton, and the music from a 1970s Doctor Pepper advertisement. You'll hear Pete Rollins, a man from a question and answer segment at a Zizek lecture, the death of God theologian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._J._Altizer">Thomas Altizer</a>, Mikey from the Life Cereal advertisementand Negativland's first album <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV08nrktjlI">Negativland</a>circa 1980.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-02-03T23_12_09-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-02-03T23_12_09-08_00Wed, 04 Feb 2015 07:12:09 GMT2015-07-292015-02-04http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,morrow,galapagos,god,zizek,rollins,fiction,symbollism,allegory0no22James Morrow is the guest this week. Morrow is a novelist and literary science fiction writer whose most well known work is probably the novel Towing Jehovah and this week we discuss his newest book, out from St. Martin's Press, Galapagos Regained. Publisher's Weekly described this new novel as "a comic blend of Victorian science colliding with Christian faith as greedy folks enter the Percy Shelley Society’s “Great God Contest” to win a hefty cash prize." And in this episode we discuss atheism, humanism, Darwin as well as the death of God, Peter Rollins, Slavoj Zizek (of course), and the difference between symbolism and allegory.
In podcast news Jasun Horsley has set sail and taken his liminal corner into its own space and own feed. His new podcast is called the Liminal Criminal.
News from Zero Books includes the recent publication of three new titles: Horsley's "Seen and Not Seen," David Winter's "Infinite Fiction," and Phil Knight's "Strangled." Strangled is about the punk band The Stranglers. These three titles arrived on January 30th.
The music in this episode includes musical doodles from Dan Lett, a work in progress from Nik Walton, and the music from a 1970s Doctor Pepper advertisement. You'll hear Pete Rollins, a man from a question and answer segment at a Zizek lecture, the death of God theologian Thomas Altizer, Mikey from the Life Cereal advertisementand Negativland's first album Negativlandcirca 1980.James Morrow is the guest this week. Morrow is a novelist and literary science fiction writer who...Zero Squared #4: The Semiotics of Happiness<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10299795.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/author/ashley-frawley">Ashley Frawley</a> is the guest this week. Frawley is a lecturer at Swansea University, her book "<a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/semiotics-of-happiness-9781472524201/">The Semiotics of Happiness</a>" is coming out from Bloomsbury in February, and we discuss how happiness was made into a political problem in the UK and how the aim of increasing "happiness" has become a substitute for real progressive politics.
In podcast news, I'm hoping to double my workload. I've got a couple Pop the Left conversations in my archive as well as a few other archived interviews meant for Diet Soap, and if I can convince Jim Farris to do it after that long unannounced hiatus I'd like to carry on with the Double Feature Review. So here's the thing: Zero Squared has a feed over at the Zero Books blog and on iTunes, but if you search for Zero Squared on iTunes you'll find two feeds, one is the podomatic Diet Soap feed and has a picture of Philip K. Dick with his, cat and the other shows a painting of Jasun Horsley and a guy who looks like Seth Rogen. The guy is me and that feed is the Zero Books blog feed.
So, here's what's going to happen…I'm going to phase out the old Diet Soap feed, the one with the picture of Philip K Dick. By April that feed will be gone. Most of you are probably subscribed to that feed. That's the podomatic feed and for a variety of reasons I think it's time to leave podomatic behind. However, while I am going to phase out the podomatic feed I'll be bringing back Diet Soap, Pop the Left and The Double Feature Review over at douglaslain.com. So, if you want to listen to all of it, to Zero Squared and everything else you can subscribe to douglaslain.com through iTunes or some other podcatcher. If you just want to listen to Zero Squared you can subscribe to Seth Rogen picture feed on iTunes or in another podcatcher. Again, my own blog douglaslain.com is where you'll find every podcast I'll do. This feed is slowly going away.
Now, while I'm at it I should mention that there is one other podcast you might look for while you're on iTunes or wherever…actually there are two more. One is the <a href="https://formerpeople.wordpress.com/category/podcast/">Former People podcast</a>. That used to be hosted on this feed and it features conversations about movies and literature. The other is <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/symptomaticrednesss-podcast/id954171474">Symptomatic Redness</a>. That podcast is new and it features my co-host from Pop the Left interviewing theorists and writers from the left.
The music in this episode includes pieces from Nik Walton, you just heard his piece Martha on the Move in the new intro, Dan Lett, and the youtube star Christian Grasslin performing a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwvxZ9VOsd4">trumpet loop version of Pharrell Williams' hit Happy</a>. You'll also hear a longish excerpt from a American Enterprise Institute talk by Arthur Brooks called "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDH4mzsQP0w">The Secret of Happiness</a>," David Harvey talking about the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOsKuyh5ps0">Zero Growth economy</a>, and Sam Binkley at the Department of Psychosocial Studies talking on "Happiness as Enterprise," and finally <a href="http://movieautist.com">Jasun Horsley</a> from his liminal corner will be heard, and the music you're listening to right now is Mark Hosler from Negativland mixing life at the <a href="http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrT6Vu5AclUaecAreMnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTEzY3Nia2wzBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkA1lIUzAwMl8x/RV=2/RE=1422488121/RO=10/RU=http%3a%2f%2fvimeo.com%2f71602510/RK=0/RS=vYqIDgjBjLH6aN_odAPfLds1h4c-">Ghostprint Gallery</a> in Richmond, Virginia.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-01-28T07_20_04-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-01-28T07_20_04-08_00Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:20:04 GMT2015-07-292015-01-28http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainhappiness,frawley,semiotics,ideology,liminalism,philosophy0no23Ashley Frawley is the guest this week. Frawley is a lecturer at Swansea University, her book "The Semiotics of Happiness" is coming out from Bloomsbury in February, and we discuss how happiness was made into a political problem in the UK and how the aim of increasing "happiness" has become a substitute for real progressive politics.
In podcast news, I'm hoping to double my workload. I've got a couple Pop the Left conversations in my archive as well as a few other archived interviews meant for Diet Soap, and if I can convince Jim Farris to do it after that long unannounced hiatus I'd like to carry on with the Double Feature Review. So here's the thing: Zero Squared has a feed over at the Zero Books blog and on iTunes, but if you search for Zero Squared on iTunes you'll find two feeds, one is the podomatic Diet Soap feed and has a picture of Philip K. Dick with his, cat and the other shows a painting of Jasun Horsley and a guy who looks like Seth Rogen. The guy is me and that feed is the Zero Books blog feed.
So, here's what's going to happen…I'm going to phase out the old Diet Soap feed, the one with the picture of Philip K Dick. By April that feed will be gone. Most of you are probably subscribed to that feed. That's the podomatic feed and for a variety of reasons I think it's time to leave podomatic behind. However, while I am going to phase out the podomatic feed I'll be bringing back Diet Soap, Pop the Left and The Double Feature Review over at douglaslain.com. So, if you want to listen to all of it, to Zero Squared and everything else you can subscribe to douglaslain.com through iTunes or some other podcatcher. If you just want to listen to Zero Squared you can subscribe to Seth Rogen picture feed on iTunes or in another podcatcher. Again, my own blog douglaslain.com is where you'll find every podcast I'll do. This feed is slowly going away.
Now, while I'm at it I should mention that there is one other podcast you might look for while you're on iTunes or wherever…actually there are two more. One is the Former People podcast. That used to be hosted on this feed and it features conversations about movies and literature. The other is Symptomatic Redness. That podcast is new and it features my co-host from Pop the Left interviewing theorists and writers from the left.
The music in this episode includes pieces from Nik Walton, you just heard his piece Martha on the Move in the new intro, Dan Lett, and the youtube star Christian Grasslin performing a trumpet loop version of Pharrell Williams' hit Happy. You'll also hear a longish excerpt from a American Enterprise Institute talk by Arthur Brooks called "The Secret of Happiness," David Harvey talking about the Zero Growth economy, and Sam Binkley at the Department of Psychosocial Studies talking on "Happiness as Enterprise," and finally Jasun Horsley from his liminal corner will be heard, and the music you're listening to right now is Mark Hosler from Negativland mixing life at the Ghostprint Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.Ashley Frawley is the guest this week. Frawley is a lecturer at Swansea University, her book "The...Zero Squared #3: Sweetening the Pill<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10282665.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/sweetening-pill">Holly Grigg-Spall</a>. Grigg-Spall is a women's health activist and the publication of her book "Sweetening the Pill" has made many, many, many people angry. Going against the common wisdom she argues that the pill is overprescribed and even dangerous to women's mental health.
Music this week includes the work of Nik Walton. Nik is a contemporary composer from Portland, Oregon, a student of Tomas Svoboda, and a friend of mine. Nik is working composing theme music for this podcast and will be a regular contributor musically along with Dan Lett. You'll also hear a harmonica version of Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines from the you tuber MisterFinkMusic, clips from the 1979 sex education film Am I Normal, as well as clips from an interview with the 20th century birth control activist Margaret Sanger.
The music you're listening to right now is Dan Lett's musical doodle Green Sharpie, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Holly Grigg-Spall and I discuss Sweetening the Pill.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-01-21T23_15_14-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-01-21T23_15_14-08_00Thu, 22 Jan 2015 07:15:14 GMT2015-07-292015-01-22http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainbirth-control,feminism,bio-politics,masculinity,feminity,theory0no24The guest this week is Holly Grigg-Spall. Grigg-Spall is a women's health activist and the publication of her book "Sweetening the Pill" has made many, many, many people angry. Going against the common wisdom she argues that the pill is overprescribed and even dangerous to women's mental health.
Music this week includes the work of Nik Walton. Nik is a contemporary composer from Portland, Oregon, a student of Tomas Svoboda, and a friend of mine. Nik is working composing theme music for this podcast and will be a regular contributor musically along with Dan Lett. You'll also hear a harmonica version of Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines from the you tuber MisterFinkMusic, clips from the 1979 sex education film Am I Normal, as well as clips from an interview with the 20th century birth control activist Margaret Sanger.
The music you're listening to right now is Dan Lett's musical doodle Green Sharpie, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Holly Grigg-Spall and I discuss Sweetening the Pill.The guest this week is Holly Grigg-Spall. Grigg-Spall is a women's health activist and the public...Zero Squared #2: The Option that No Longer Exists<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10260578.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />John Medhurst is a Trade Unionist and activist and we discuss his book <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/that-option-no-longer-exists">That Option No Longer Exists: Britain 1974-'76</a>. We also consider the possibility that the Labour party's industrial policy was a real solution to economic crisis of the 70s.
Comment on the murder of the staff of the French comic magazine Charlie Hebdo:
As a radical publisher I am compelled to stand in solidarity with these French comrades and announce that "Je Suis Charlie." More than that I'd want to point out that standing with liberty means precisely standing with the satirists and whether it's Stephen Colbert, Stewart Lee, Jonathan Swift, or the Charlie Hebdo twelve the obligation is the same. Drawings of monkeys, prophets, or assholes should not stifle our outrage at religious terrorists any more than the crimes these reactionaries should push us into the arms of Le Pen.
The music and voices you'll hear in this podcast include an amateur string quartet covering the 1979 hit "Funky Town" by Lipps Incorporated, the voice of Brendan Cooney, Esai Morales performing the Internationale on the piano, Harry Partch's "And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma," and Chris Isto White's "Six Composition in Paste."
Jasun Horsley offers his first bout of "<a href="http://movieautist.com">Liminalist</a>" musing at the close of this episode.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-01-14T00_31_59-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-01-14T00_31_59-08_00Wed, 14 Jan 2015 08:31:59 GMT2015-07-292015-01-14http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainseventies,labour,thatcher,neoliberalism,unions,bureaucrat,zero0no25John Medhurst is a Trade Unionist and activist and we discuss his book That Option No Longer Exists: Britain 1974-'76. We also consider the possibility that the Labour party's industrial policy was a real solution to economic crisis of the 70s.
Comment on the murder of the staff of the French comic magazine Charlie Hebdo:
As a radical publisher I am compelled to stand in solidarity with these French comrades and announce that "Je Suis Charlie." More than that I'd want to point out that standing with liberty means precisely standing with the satirists and whether it's Stephen Colbert, Stewart Lee, Jonathan Swift, or the Charlie Hebdo twelve the obligation is the same. Drawings of monkeys, prophets, or assholes should not stifle our outrage at religious terrorists any more than the crimes these reactionaries should push us into the arms of Le Pen.
The music and voices you'll hear in this podcast include an amateur string quartet covering the 1979 hit "Funky Town" by Lipps Incorporated, the voice of Brendan Cooney, Esai Morales performing the Internationale on the piano, Harry Partch's "And On The Seventh Day Petals Fell In Petaluma," and Chris Isto White's "Six Composition in Paste."
Jasun Horsley offers his first bout of "Liminalist" musing at the close of this episode.John Medhurst is a Trade Unionist and activist and we discuss his book That Option No Longer Exis...Zero Squared #1: Seen and Not Seen<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10240662.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Jasun Horsley is the first guest. His book <a href="http://movieautist.com">Seen and Not Seen: Confessions of a Movie Autist</a> is coming out from Zero Books at the end of this month.
Also in this episode: the voice of TJ Clark, the music of Dan Lett, the Zero Books manifesto as written by Tariq Goddard, my call for submissions of books written about Marx's peculiar materialism, and a brief recap of the event that led to my landing in the publisher's seat and a veiled call for peace.
Credit goes to Lucinda Horan for the Zero Squared logo and to the Art of Flying’s “Song for my Peeps” for providing the introductory music.
Jasun Horsley will be recurring feature of this podcast with updates from what we're tentatively calling his "Liminalist Corner."http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-01-07T00_46_07-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2015-01-07T00_46_07-08_00Wed, 07 Jan 2015 08:46:07 GMT2015-07-292015-01-07http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,zero,podcast,marxism,surrealism,theory0no26Jasun Horsley is the first guest. His book Seen and Not Seen: Confessions of a Movie Autist is coming out from Zero Books at the end of this month.
Also in this episode: the voice of TJ Clark, the music of Dan Lett, the Zero Books manifesto as written by Tariq Goddard, my call for submissions of books written about Marx's peculiar materialism, and a brief recap of the event that led to my landing in the publisher's seat and a veiled call for peace.
Credit goes to Lucinda Horan for the Zero Squared logo and to the Art of Flying’s “Song for my Peeps” for providing the introductory music.
Jasun Horsley will be recurring feature of this podcast with updates from what we're tentatively calling his "Liminalist Corner."Jasun Horsley is the first guest. His book Seen and Not Seen: Confessions of a Movie Autist is co...Zero Point: Stanley Kubrick<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10098785.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />This week Diet Soap is replaced by Zero Point, a podcast focusing on Zero Books and it's authors. And, because Douglas Lain is working away on his next novel, the mystical movie man Jason Horsley has replaced Lain as host. The question discussed is this one: Was Stanley Kubrick a phony whose greatest artistic achievement was merely conning people into thinking he was a great artist? Why is it that all of Kubrick's bad movies (The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut) are now considered masterpieces? Just what is going on here?
Horsley sides with the late film critic Pauline Kael in his assessment of Kubrick's oeuvre. Here's Kael's observations about Kubrick's film "A Clockwork Orange."
<i>“When I pass a newsstand and see the saintly, bearded, intellectual Kubrick on the cover of Saturday Review, I wonder: Do people notice things like the way Kubrick cuts to the rival teen-age gang before Alex and his hoods arrive to fight them, just so we can have the pleasure of watching that gang strip the struggling girl they mean to rape? Alex’s voice is on the track announcing his arrival, but Kubrick can’t wait for Alex to arrive, because then he couldn’t show us as much. That girl is stripped for our benefit; it’s the purest exploitation. Yet this film lusts for greatness, and I’m not sure that Kubrick knows how to make simple movies anymore, or that he cares to, either. I don’t know how consciously he has thrown this film to youth; maybe he’s more of a showman than he lets on — a lucky showman with opportunism built into the cells of his body. The film can work at a pop-fantasy level for a young audience already prepared to accept Alex’s view of the society, ready to believe that that’s how it is.”</i>http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-11-11T20_03_08-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-11-11T20_03_08-08_00Wed, 12 Nov 2014 04:03:08 GMT2015-07-292014-11-12http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainkubrick,shining,clockwork,nihilism,conspiracy,films,theory0no27This week Diet Soap is replaced by Zero Point, a podcast focusing on Zero Books and it's authors. And, because Douglas Lain is working away on his next novel, the mystical movie man Jason Horsley has replaced Lain as host. The question discussed is this one: Was Stanley Kubrick a phony whose greatest artistic achievement was merely conning people into thinking he was a great artist? Why is it that all of Kubrick's bad movies (The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut) are now considered masterpieces? Just what is going on here?
Horsley sides with the late film critic Pauline Kael in his assessment of Kubrick's oeuvre. Here's Kael's observations about Kubrick's film "A Clockwork Orange."
“When I pass a newsstand and see the saintly, bearded, intellectual Kubrick on the cover of Saturday Review, I wonder: Do people notice things like the way Kubrick cuts to the rival teen-age gang before Alex and his hoods arrive to fight them, just so we can have the pleasure of watching that gang strip the struggling girl they mean to rape? Alex’s voice is on the track announcing his arrival, but Kubrick can’t wait for Alex to arrive, because then he couldn’t show us as much. That girl is stripped for our benefit; it’s the purest exploitation. Yet this film lusts for greatness, and I’m not sure that Kubrick knows how to make simple movies anymore, or that he cares to, either. I don’t know how consciously he has thrown this film to youth; maybe he’s more of a showman than he lets on — a lucky showman with opportunism built into the cells of his body. The film can work at a pop-fantasy level for a young audience already prepared to accept Alex’s view of the society, ready to believe that that’s how it is.”This week Diet Soap is replaced by Zero Point, a podcast focusing on Zero Books and it's authors....Double Feature Review Podcast: Time Travel and other Adjustments<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10074916.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The Double Feature review podcast returns and we learn that Time Travel is real, Jim Farris was once the head of HR for the Potato Salad Festival Planning Meeting, and that fedoras are just too stylish and get in the way.
The movies reviewed are The Time Traveler's Wife and The Adjustment Bureau, neither of which are particularly good but both of which are interesting.
Listen as Doug mansplains and hetsplains about heteronormativity. Find out just how the universe is run according to plan. Hear clips from movies that are totally unrelated to the movies we're discussing.
Listen and Believe.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-11-04T08_01_38-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-11-04T08_01_38-08_00Tue, 04 Nov 2014 16:01:38 GMT2015-07-292014-11-04http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lain3407no28The Double Feature review podcast returns and we learn that Time Travel is real, Jim Farris was once the head of HR for the Potato Salad Festival Planning Meeting, and that fedoras are just too stylish and get in the way.
The movies reviewed are The Time Traveler's Wife and The Adjustment Bureau, neither of which are particularly good but both of which are interesting.
Listen as Doug mansplains and hetsplains about heteronormativity. Find out just how the universe is run according to plan. Hear clips from movies that are totally unrelated to the movies we're discussing.
Listen and Believe.The Double Feature review podcast returns and we learn that Time Travel is real, Jim Farris was o...Diet Soap Podcast #226: Goodbye to the Feel Good Left<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10056145.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="http://akliman.squarespace.com/">Andrew Kliman</a> returns this week and we discuss why Piketty's Capital was so popular and the trials and tribulations of Facebook Leftism. Andrew Kliman is a professor of economics at Pace University and the author of the books Reclaiming Marx's Capital and The Failure of Capitalist Production and this is part two of a conversation about his recent essay in Truthdig entitled Were Corporate CEOs Really Hogging Worker's Wages?
I"m sorry for the delay in the schedule and I'd like to thank John Spillane, Andrew M, Jacob L, Ted F, and Niall G for their donations to the podcast. If you like Diet Soap I urge you to find the paypal button at dietsoap.podomatic.com and support the show as well.
I think it's important that I put a trigger warning here. The clips in this episode include the voice of Suey Park, Josh Zepp, the Amazing Atheist, Rebecca Watson, and Raphael of "die cis scum" fame. The music includes the 70s hit Popcorn from Hot Butter and the Facebook moments music from that Facebook movie thing that was popular earlier this year.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-10-28T20_48_50-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-10-28T20_48_50-07_00Wed, 29 Oct 2014 03:48:50 GMT2015-07-292014-10-29http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,marxism,sjw,piketty,economics,leftism,feelism0no29Andrew Kliman returns this week and we discuss why Piketty's Capital was so popular and the trials and tribulations of Facebook Leftism. Andrew Kliman is a professor of economics at Pace University and the author of the books Reclaiming Marx's Capital and The Failure of Capitalist Production and this is part two of a conversation about his recent essay in Truthdig entitled Were Corporate CEOs Really Hogging Worker's Wages?
I"m sorry for the delay in the schedule and I'd like to thank John Spillane, Andrew M, Jacob L, Ted F, and Niall G for their donations to the podcast. If you like Diet Soap I urge you to find the paypal button at dietsoap.podomatic.com and support the show as well.
I think it's important that I put a trigger warning here. The clips in this episode include the voice of Suey Park, Josh Zepp, the Amazing Atheist, Rebecca Watson, and Raphael of "die cis scum" fame. The music includes the 70s hit Popcorn from Hot Butter and the Facebook moments music from that Facebook movie thing that was popular earlier this year.
Andrew Kliman returns this week and we discuss why Piketty's Capital was so popular and the trial...Diet Soap Podcast #225: Were Top Corporate Executives Really Hogging Workers’ Wages?<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_10012735.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />CEOs, Supermanagers, and other rich people are the subject this week as Andrew Kliman asks the question "<a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/were_top_corporate_executives_really_hogging_workers_wages_20140917">Were Top Corporate Executives Really Hogging Workers’ Wages</a>?"
Professor Andrew Kliman is a professor of economics and Pace University and the author of the books <u>Reclaiming Marx's Capital</u> and <u>The Failure of Capitalist Production</u>," and the answer he gives as he discusses his essay at Truthdig may surprise you.
Here's an excerpt from that essay:
<i>Thomas Piketty attributes rising inequality in the U.S. primarily to huge increases in the salaries of CEOs and other top executives, but he misinterprets the evidence. Rising salaries of top executives actually explain very little of the rise in inequality, and they depressed other employees’ pay by only a negligible amount.</i>
It's Monday, October 13th, 2014, and I'm Douglas Lain the host of this podcast.
I'd like to thank Andy M, Jacob L, John Lewis, James H, John S, and Phillip L for donating to the podcast, and urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal button at dietsoap.podomatic.com or look for the paypal buttons at douglaslain.com which will be going up in the next few days. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donation. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-10-13T23_23_46-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-10-13T23_23_46-07_00Tue, 14 Oct 2014 06:23:46 GMT2015-07-292014-10-14http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Laintruthdig,supermanagers,piketty,capital,capitalism,ceos,rich,wages0no30CEOs, Supermanagers, and other rich people are the subject this week as Andrew Kliman asks the question "Were Top Corporate Executives Really Hogging Workers’ Wages?"
Professor Andrew Kliman is a professor of economics and Pace University and the author of the books Reclaiming Marx's Capital and The Failure of Capitalist Production," and the answer he gives as he discusses his essay at Truthdig may surprise you.
Here's an excerpt from that essay:
Thomas Piketty attributes rising inequality in the U.S. primarily to huge increases in the salaries of CEOs and other top executives, but he misinterprets the evidence. Rising salaries of top executives actually explain very little of the rise in inequality, and they depressed other employees’ pay by only a negligible amount.
It's Monday, October 13th, 2014, and I'm Douglas Lain the host of this podcast.
I'd like to thank Andy M, Jacob L, John Lewis, James H, John S, and Phillip L for donating to the podcast, and urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal button at dietsoap.podomatic.com or look for the paypal buttons at douglaslain.com which will be going up in the next few days. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donation. CEOs, Supermanagers, and other rich people are the subject this week as Andrew Kliman asks the qu...Diet Soap Podcast #224: Pop the Imperialism<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9992835.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Imperialism is the subject this week as C Derrick Varn and I bring back Pop the Left and discuss Lenin's pamphlet "Imperialism: The Highest Form of Capitalism."This was to be a discussion of the notion of the labor aristocracy, but we decided to start slow and see if we could understand Imperialism first.
From Lenin's pamphlet, here's the definition:
<i>[Imperialism features]
(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life
(2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy
(3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance
(4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves
(5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed.
Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.</i>
I’d like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal button at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is also available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donationhttp://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-10-07T12_54_22-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-10-07T12_54_22-07_00Tue, 07 Oct 2014 19:54:22 GMT2015-07-292014-10-07http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainimperialism,marx,philosophy,economics,lenin,kliman,shakespeare0no31Imperialism is the subject this week as C Derrick Varn and I bring back Pop the Left and discuss Lenin's pamphlet "Imperialism: The Highest Form of Capitalism."This was to be a discussion of the notion of the labor aristocracy, but we decided to start slow and see if we could understand Imperialism first.
From Lenin's pamphlet, here's the definition:
[Imperialism features]
(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life
(2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy
(3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance
(4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves
(5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed.
Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.
I’d like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal button at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is also available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donationImperialism is the subject this week as C Derrick Varn and I bring back Pop the Left and discuss ...Double Feature Review: Cabin Fever or Cabin in the Woods<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9973689.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Cabin Fever along with Cabin in the Woods make up the double feature for this month's Double Feature Review podcast. Also featured in this episode are comments on the movie Grosse Point Blank, the television show Roseanne, and the Jim Farris' endless grumbling.
One time pornographer and screenwriter for Universal Studios, Jim Farris begins the episode by noting our hiatus. "What is wrong with Douglas Lain?" Or to quote him directly, "WTF is wrong with you?" Listen closely for Lain's retelling of his thirteenth mid-life crisis nervous breakdown.
Follow Douglas Lain and Jim Farris on ello.co if you can. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-09-30T22_00_52-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-09-30T22_00_52-07_00Wed, 01 Oct 2014 05:00:52 GMT2015-07-292014-10-01http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Laincabin,fever,woods,whedon,weasles,horror,aging,gore,bush0no32Cabin Fever along with Cabin in the Woods make up the double feature for this month's Double Feature Review podcast. Also featured in this episode are comments on the movie Grosse Point Blank, the television show Roseanne, and the Jim Farris' endless grumbling.
One time pornographer and screenwriter for Universal Studios, Jim Farris begins the episode by noting our hiatus. "What is wrong with Douglas Lain?" Or to quote him directly, "WTF is wrong with you?" Listen closely for Lain's retelling of his thirteenth mid-life crisis nervous breakdown.
Follow Douglas Lain and Jim Farris on ello.co if you can. Cabin Fever along with Cabin in the Woods make up the double feature for this month's Double Feat...Diet Soap Podcast #223: Death and Other Impossibilities <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9950678.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Death is the subject this week as I talk to <a href="http://hilariousbookbinder.blogspot.com/">Daniel Coffeen</a> about his neurosis, his grieving, and his buddhist therapist. The inevitability and impossibility of death is the subject as the sophist or rhetor and I try to figure out what life is all about and how we might live on in the face of our inevitable end.
You might hear a bit of a difference this week as I'm trying out my new Snowball Microphone and I'd like to thank Andy Marshall for his generous donation. Andy will be receiving the old Snowball microphone in the next week, after I get a chance to sign the thing.
I'd also like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is also available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
Some of the music you'll hear on this podcast includes Lieutenant Kije-Symphonic Suite, Opus 60: IV Troika, as heard in Woody Allen's 1975 film, Love and Death. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-09-22T22_26_00-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-09-22T22_26_00-07_00Tue, 23 Sep 2014 05:26:00 GMT2015-07-292014-09-23http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Laindeath,dying,mortality,immortality,ghosts,philosophy,buddhism,grieving,fear0no33Death is the subject this week as I talk to Daniel Coffeen about his neurosis, his grieving, and his buddhist therapist. The inevitability and impossibility of death is the subject as the sophist or rhetor and I try to figure out what life is all about and how we might live on in the face of our inevitable end.
You might hear a bit of a difference this week as I'm trying out my new Snowball Microphone and I'd like to thank Andy Marshall for his generous donation. Andy will be receiving the old Snowball microphone in the next week, after I get a chance to sign the thing.
I'd also like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is also available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
Some of the music you'll hear on this podcast includes Lieutenant Kije-Symphonic Suite, Opus 60: IV Troika, as heard in Woody Allen's 1975 film, Love and Death. Death is the subject this week as I talk to Daniel Coffeen about his neurosis, his grieving, and ...Soap Zero 2: Enlightenment Interrupted<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9931489.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />German Idealism and the Enlightenment are the subjects this week as Michael Steinberg discuss his book "<a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/enlightenment-interrupted">Enlightenment Interrupted</a>." Steinberg is an independent scholar and practicing attorney with a PhD in intellectual history from the University of Rochester. His book "Enlightenment Interrupted (The Lost Moment of German Idealism and the Reactionary Present)" came out from <a href="http://www.zero-books.net ">Zero Books</a> in July of this year.
Previous books from Mr. Steinberg include The Fiction of a Thinkable World and A New Biology of Religion.
Professor Andrew Nash at the University of Cape Town praised the book. He wrote, <em>"Michael Steinberg’s "Enlightenment Interrupted" is a master class and a rollercoaster ride, all at once. The pitfalls of abstract individualism have been pointed out since Hegel, and explaining them has been central to radical political thought for fifty years by now. But it’s never been easy to grasp concretely how that separation of self and world came about, and what the alternative to it could have been."</em>http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-09-16T01_39_41-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-09-16T01_39_41-07_00Tue, 16 Sep 2014 08:39:41 GMT2015-07-292014-09-16http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,enlightenment,hegel,marxism,zerobooks,modernism0no34German Idealism and the Enlightenment are the subjects this week as Michael Steinberg discuss his book "Enlightenment Interrupted." Steinberg is an independent scholar and practicing attorney with a PhD in intellectual history from the University of Rochester. His book "Enlightenment Interrupted (The Lost Moment of German Idealism and the Reactionary Present)" came out from Zero Books in July of this year.
Previous books from Mr. Steinberg include The Fiction of a Thinkable World and A New Biology of Religion.
Professor Andrew Nash at the University of Cape Town praised the book. He wrote, "Michael Steinberg’s "Enlightenment Interrupted" is a master class and a rollercoaster ride, all at once. The pitfalls of abstract individualism have been pointed out since Hegel, and explaining them has been central to radical political thought for fifty years by now. But it’s never been easy to grasp concretely how that separation of self and world came about, and what the alternative to it could have been."German Idealism and the Enlightenment are the subjects this week as Michael Steinberg discuss his...Diet Soap Podcast #221: The Making of Indebted Man<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9909802.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Nietzsche and Marx are the primary subjects this week as <a href="http://hilariousbookbinder.blogspot.com/">Daniel Coffeen</a> and I discuss the book <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/making-indebted-man-0">The Making of Indebted Man</a>.
The MIT press website describes the thesis of the book as follows:
<i>The debtor-creditor relation, which is at the heart of this book, sharpens mechanisms of exploitation and domination indiscriminately, since, in it, there is no distinction between workers and the unemployed, consumers and producers, working and non-working populations, between retirees and welfare recipients. They are all “debtors,” guilty and responsible in the eyes of capital, which has become the Great, the Universal, Creditor.</i>
You might guess that I, being a wannabe Marxist, take some issue with that description of Capital, but Coffeen and I found points of agreement along the way in this conversation, both with each other and with the author Maurizio Lazaarato.
I'd like to urge regular listeners to the podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review of at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-09-07T22_37_25-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-09-07T22_37_25-07_00Mon, 08 Sep 2014 05:37:25 GMT2015-07-292014-09-08http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,philosophy,nietzsche,neoliberal,debt,deleuze,theory0no35Nietzsche and Marx are the primary subjects this week as Daniel Coffeen and I discuss the book The Making of Indebted Man.
The MIT press website describes the thesis of the book as follows:
The debtor-creditor relation, which is at the heart of this book, sharpens mechanisms of exploitation and domination indiscriminately, since, in it, there is no distinction between workers and the unemployed, consumers and producers, working and non-working populations, between retirees and welfare recipients. They are all “debtors,” guilty and responsible in the eyes of capital, which has become the Great, the Universal, Creditor.
You might guess that I, being a wannabe Marxist, take some issue with that description of Capital, but Coffeen and I found points of agreement along the way in this conversation, both with each other and with the author Maurizio Lazaarato.
I'd like to urge regular listeners to the podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review of at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
Nietzsche and Marx are the primary subjects this week as Daniel Coffeen and I discuss the book Th...Diet Soap Podcast #220: Karl Marx's Reluctant Idealism<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9893645.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Karl Marx and Hegel are the subjects this week as I talk to my friend Andy Marshall about Marx's <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/hegel.htm">Critique of Hegel's Philosophy</a> in general. This conversation comes on the heels of a Facebook row with C Derick Varn wherein Varn took the widely accepted position that Marx was a materialist and Hegel was an idealist, while I argued that Marx was too enamored with Hegel's dialectical logic and the unity of subject and object to really escape the Platonic Realm entirely.
I'd like to thank Andy Marshall, Penny R, Reagan S, and Shane S, for their generous one time donations to the Diet Soap podcast, and to thank Andy Marshall, Ted F, John Spillane, Jacob L, and John L for their recurring donations. I urge regular listeners to the podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
In the words of the Marxist Humanist Raya Dunayevskaya Marx's humanism was neither a rejection of idealism nor an acceptance of materialism, but the truth of both, and therefore a new unity.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-09-01T18_42_01-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-09-01T18_42_01-07_00Tue, 02 Sep 2014 01:42:01 GMT2015-07-292014-09-02http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lain0no36Karl Marx and Hegel are the subjects this week as I talk to my friend Andy Marshall about Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy in general. This conversation comes on the heels of a Facebook row with C Derick Varn wherein Varn took the widely accepted position that Marx was a materialist and Hegel was an idealist, while I argued that Marx was too enamored with Hegel's dialectical logic and the unity of subject and object to really escape the Platonic Realm entirely.
I'd like to thank Andy Marshall, Penny R, Reagan S, and Shane S, for their generous one time donations to the Diet Soap podcast, and to thank Andy Marshall, Ted F, John Spillane, Jacob L, and John L for their recurring donations. I urge regular listeners to the podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
In the words of the Marxist Humanist Raya Dunayevskaya Marx's humanism was neither a rejection of idealism nor an acceptance of materialism, but the truth of both, and therefore a new unity.Karl Marx and Hegel are the subjects this week as I talk to my friend Andy Marshall about Marx's ...Talking Art: Conceptual Art<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9878769.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Conceptual art is the subject Miriam and I discuss as I try to work on my novel and create a podcast at one and the same time.
We start with John Baldessari's "A painting by Pat Nelson" and with the ideology of the polaroid camera, where the goal was to eliminate the barrier between the photographer and his subject so that all that was left was the simple decision. This is the ideology of art that is on display in these paintings. The artist is the man pointing, and in fact John took polaroids (or at least photographs) of his artist friend pointing at things that interested him enough to point at them. But what we're given isn't a series of these photographs, but a series of paintings. What John did was take the photos to different "sunday painters" who were then given the instruction to realistically paint what they saw in the photos. They were told not to embellish or make art, but just to render the photos in paint. What we were left with is an erasure of the act of painting (because what makes these paintings interesting isn't the painterliness of the painting) and also the erasure of that immediate act of decision (the subject matter isn't interesting either) and instead we have paintings of what polaroid wants to ignore. The mediating step. But what John wants to give us is that mediating step in itself and without mediation. He wants to make it transparently apparent. Paradoxically what he has to do in order to make the mediation of our experience of his work apparent is to create an aesthetic of irony rather than no aesthetic at all.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-26T23_57_57-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-26T23_57_57-07_00Wed, 27 Aug 2014 06:57:57 GMT2015-07-292014-08-27http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainart,philosophy,surrealism,ideology,collage0no37Conceptual art is the subject Miriam and I discuss as I try to work on my novel and create a podcast at one and the same time.
We start with John Baldessari's "A painting by Pat Nelson" and with the ideology of the polaroid camera, where the goal was to eliminate the barrier between the photographer and his subject so that all that was left was the simple decision. This is the ideology of art that is on display in these paintings. The artist is the man pointing, and in fact John took polaroids (or at least photographs) of his artist friend pointing at things that interested him enough to point at them. But what we're given isn't a series of these photographs, but a series of paintings. What John did was take the photos to different "sunday painters" who were then given the instruction to realistically paint what they saw in the photos. They were told not to embellish or make art, but just to render the photos in paint. What we were left with is an erasure of the act of painting (because what makes these paintings interesting isn't the painterliness of the painting) and also the erasure of that immediate act of decision (the subject matter isn't interesting either) and instead we have paintings of what polaroid wants to ignore. The mediating step. But what John wants to give us is that mediating step in itself and without mediation. He wants to make it transparently apparent. Paradoxically what he has to do in order to make the mediation of our experience of his work apparent is to create an aesthetic of irony rather than no aesthetic at all.
Conceptual art is the subject Miriam and I discuss as I try to work on my novel and create a podc...Soap Zero #1: Film Stills and Unreality<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9854324.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="http://www.zero-books.net/">Zero Books</a> will be the focus of this new new line of Diet Soap specials. Which means this is episode 218 for Diet Soap but it is also episode one of Soap Zero, a podcast dedicated books published by Zero Books. The guest this week is <a href="http://www.udmercy.edu/about/meet_faculty/clae/Nick-Rombes.htm">Nicholas Rombes</a> and we discuss his book <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/10-40-70">10/40/70</a>. The premise of the book is that one can learn about a film by analyzing stills from it,specifically stills lifted from the ten, forty, and seventy minute mark. We take a close look at the Cronenberg's 1999 film eXistenZ.
I'd like to urge regular listeners to the podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review of at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
Music and sound clips on this episode include Otto Luening's "Low Speed" circa 1952, Delia Derbyshire's "Love Without Sound," clips from eXistenZ, and a lecture about Deleuze's Film Theory set to the song Skokiaan as played in the film Slacker. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-17T21_51_29-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-17T21_51_29-07_00Mon, 18 Aug 2014 04:51:29 GMT2015-07-292014-08-18http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainfilm,books,existenz,theory,epistemology,metafiction0no38Zero Books will be the focus of this new new line of Diet Soap specials. Which means this is episode 218 for Diet Soap but it is also episode one of Soap Zero, a podcast dedicated books published by Zero Books. The guest this week is Nicholas Rombes and we discuss his book 10/40/70. The premise of the book is that one can learn about a film by analyzing stills from it,specifically stills lifted from the ten, forty, and seventy minute mark. We take a close look at the Cronenberg's 1999 film eXistenZ.
I'd like to urge regular listeners to the podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review of at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
Music and sound clips on this episode include Otto Luening's "Low Speed" circa 1952, Delia Derbyshire's "Love Without Sound," clips from eXistenZ, and a lecture about Deleuze's Film Theory set to the song Skokiaan as played in the film Slacker. Zero Books will be the focus of this new new line of Diet Soap specials. Which means this is epis...Diet Soap Podcast #217: What's Missing in Psychoanalysis?<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9833491.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Psychoanalysis and Lacan are the subjects this week and Joshua Cohen is the guest. We specifically discuss the object relation theory of the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein and the knotty theories of Jacque Lacan. Psychoanalytic terms such as splitting, psychic destitution, and the big Other are tossed around as Joshua Cohen is a therapist working in Seattle with training in Kleinian therapeutic techniques, and an interest in Lacan.
I'd like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review of at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
The music is this episode includesMozart's The Marriage of Figaro (a work Freud claimed to enjoy despite being, in his own words, "completely unmusical") as performed by Babette Dorn. Also included are clips of Zizek discussing coffee and cream, Annette Hanshaw singing "You're the Cream in my Coffee," a clip from The History of Philosophy without any Gaps, Louis CK on Parmenides and Parenting, and Mister Rogers autotuned.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-10T07_46_37-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-10T07_46_37-07_00Sun, 10 Aug 2014 14:46:37 GMT2015-07-292014-08-10http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainpsychoanalysis,lacan,klein,therapy,psychology,splitting,transference0no39Psychoanalysis and Lacan are the subjects this week and Joshua Cohen is the guest. We specifically discuss the object relation theory of the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein and the knotty theories of Jacque Lacan. Psychoanalytic terms such as splitting, psychic destitution, and the big Other are tossed around as Joshua Cohen is a therapist working in Seattle with training in Kleinian therapeutic techniques, and an interest in Lacan.
I'd like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review of at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
The music is this episode includesMozart's The Marriage of Figaro (a work Freud claimed to enjoy despite being, in his own words, "completely unmusical") as performed by Babette Dorn. Also included are clips of Zizek discussing coffee and cream, Annette Hanshaw singing "You're the Cream in my Coffee," a clip from The History of Philosophy without any Gaps, Louis CK on Parmenides and Parenting, and Mister Rogers autotuned.
Psychoanalysis and Lacan are the subjects this week and Joshua Cohen is the guest. We specificall...Diet Soap Podcast #216: Capitalism, Neoliberalism, and Class War<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9812322.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Andrew Kliman is the guest this week as we discuss back and forth exchange of essays written by Andrew Kliman and Sam Gindin for Jacobin and The New Left Project and I give Kliman a chance to refute the prevailing mythology of wage suppression under neoliberalism once again. More importantly we discuss the need for metanarratives, the failure of leftist ambition, and what we mean when we say the words "class" and "war." Andrew Kliman is the author of "The Failure of Capitalist Production."
You'll notice that about a quarter of the way into the interview the sound quality for Andrew's side of the conversation declines. Unfortunately what happened was that his Skype connection started to break up and so we had to continue on his landline.
I'd like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review of at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
The music in this episode includes Boris Tihomirov's Electronic Alarm-Clock and Delia Derbyshire's Love Without Sound.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-02T02_17_06-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-02T02_17_06-07_00Sat, 02 Aug 2014 09:17:06 GMT2015-07-292014-08-02http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,philosophy,neoliberalism,class,wages,gindin,kliman0no40Andrew Kliman is the guest this week as we discuss back and forth exchange of essays written by Andrew Kliman and Sam Gindin for Jacobin and The New Left Project and I give Kliman a chance to refute the prevailing mythology of wage suppression under neoliberalism once again. More importantly we discuss the need for metanarratives, the failure of leftist ambition, and what we mean when we say the words "class" and "war." Andrew Kliman is the author of "The Failure of Capitalist Production."
You'll notice that about a quarter of the way into the interview the sound quality for Andrew's side of the conversation declines. Unfortunately what happened was that his Skype connection started to break up and so we had to continue on his landline.
I'd like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review of at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
The music in this episode includes Boris Tihomirov's Electronic Alarm-Clock and Delia Derbyshire's Love Without Sound.
Andrew Kliman is the guest this week as we discuss back and forth exchange of essays written by A...Double Feature Podcast #4: Wild Women and Queens<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9796644.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciVF-F-xi5s">Wild Women of Wongo</a> along with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O4_s7UR3W4">Colossus and the Amazon Queen</a> make up the double feature for this month's Double Feature Review podcast. Also featured in this episode are comments on the television program House MD, the movie Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and the invention of pornography.
The one time stand-up comic and screen writer Jim Farris begins the episode by complaining that he is too often introduced with a list of his accomplishments from years gone by whereas he'd prefer to be introduced with a mention of his current endeavor to enact the Statler Brother's 1969 Flowers on the Wall in real time via webcam. Most of Farris' complaining has been cut from this episode.
Douglas Lain is available by appointment only.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-07-27T15_17_43-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-07-27T15_17_43-07_00Sun, 27 Jul 2014 22:17:43 GMT2015-07-292014-07-27http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainfury,sex,50s,60s,craptastic,movies0yes41The Wild Women of Wongo along with Colossus and the Amazon Queen make up the double feature for this month's Double Feature Review podcast. Also featured in this episode are comments on the television program House MD, the movie Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and the invention of pornography.
The one time stand-up comic and screen writer Jim Farris begins the episode by complaining that he is too often introduced with a list of his accomplishments from years gone by whereas he'd prefer to be introduced with a mention of his current endeavor to enact the Statler Brother's 1969 Flowers on the Wall in real time via webcam. Most of Farris' complaining has been cut from this episode.
Douglas Lain is available by appointment only.
The Wild Women of Wongo along with Colossus and the Amazon Queen make up the double feature for t...Diet Soap Podcast #215: Columbo and Confession<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9753179.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Peter Falk's Columbo is the subject this week and <a href="http://formerpeople.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/a-letter-from-the-editors-former-people-is-dead-long-live-former-people/">Steven A. Michalkow</a> returns. Steven is an editor at Former People and a podcaster in his own right as the Former People film podcast continues.
On the subject of Columbo and psychoanalysis Slavoj Zizek wrote: <i>In the TV-series Columbo, the crime (the act of murder) is shown in detail in advance, so that the enigma to be resolved is not that of "whodunit?", but of how the detective will establish the link between the deceitful surface (the "manifest content" of the crime scene) and the truth about the crime (its "latent thought"), how he will prove to the culprit his or her guilt. The success of Columbo thus attests to the fact that the true source of interest in the detective's work, is the process of deciphering itself, not its result (the triumphant final revelation "And the murderer is…" is completely lacking here, since we know this from the very outset).</i>
It's Saturday, July 12th, 2014, and I'm Douglas Lain the host of this podcast.
I'd like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is also available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-07-12T11_10_42-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-07-12T11_10_42-07_00Sat, 12 Jul 2014 18:10:42 GMT2015-07-292014-07-12http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Laindetective,columbo,television,criticism,zizek,psychoanalysis,irrealism,surrealism0no42Peter Falk's Columbo is the subject this week and Steven A. Michalkow returns. Steven is an editor at Former People and a podcaster in his own right as the Former People film podcast continues.
On the subject of Columbo and psychoanalysis Slavoj Zizek wrote: In the TV-series Columbo, the crime (the act of murder) is shown in detail in advance, so that the enigma to be resolved is not that of "whodunit?", but of how the detective will establish the link between the deceitful surface (the "manifest content" of the crime scene) and the truth about the crime (its "latent thought"), how he will prove to the culprit his or her guilt. The success of Columbo thus attests to the fact that the true source of interest in the detective's work, is the process of deciphering itself, not its result (the triumphant final revelation "And the murderer is…" is completely lacking here, since we know this from the very outset).
It's Saturday, July 12th, 2014, and I'm Douglas Lain the host of this podcast.
I'd like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is also available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
Peter Falk's Columbo is the subject this week and Steven A. Michalkow returns. Steven is an edito...Diet Soap Podcast #214: The Religion of Identity<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9734951.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/author/amber-frost/">Amber A'Lee Frost</a> is the guest this week and we discuss her essay "<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/06/bro-bash/">Bro Bash</a>" which was recently published in Jacobin magazine. The essay created quite a stir in twitter social justice circles as a criticism of <a href="https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior">Sarah Kendzior</a> was mischaracterized and this led to false accusations. Here's a link to an <a href="http://imgur.com/a/nUX1A">infographic explaining the debacle</a>.
This week I'd like to thank Daniel A and David for their one time donations, and also thank Ted F, Jacob L, Andy Marshall, John Spillane, and John L for their regular monthly donations. And I'd like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is also available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-07-05T14_33_36-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-07-05T14_33_36-07_00Sat, 05 Jul 2014 21:33:36 GMT2015-07-292014-07-05http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainidentity,jacobin,kendizor,brocialism,mansplaining,class,gender,feminism0no43Amber A'Lee Frost is the guest this week and we discuss her essay "Bro Bash" which was recently published in Jacobin magazine. The essay created quite a stir in twitter social justice circles as a criticism of Sarah Kendzior was mischaracterized and this led to false accusations. Here's a link to an infographic explaining the debacle.
This week I'd like to thank Daniel A and David for their one time donations, and also thank Ted F, Jacob L, Andy Marshall, John Spillane, and John L for their regular monthly donations. And I'd like to urge regular listeners to the Diet Soap podcast to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, the podcast is also available via iTunes and I urge people who enjoy this show to consider leaving a review at iTunes in lieu of a donation.
Amber A'Lee Frost is the guest this week and we discuss her essay "Bro Bash" which was recently p...Double Feature Review Podcast #3: Sex is a Catch 22<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9714285.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Joseph Heller's screenplay Sex and the Single Girl and the movie version of his novel Catch 22 are put under the microscope in this episode of the Double Feature Review. Jim Farris and Douglas Lain are the hosts of what is sure to become the most important film review podcast of all time.
Back in 1964 AH Weiler, writing for the New York Times, declared that Sex and the Single Girl was "not the worst picture ever made, girls and boys. No kidding." While in 1970 Roger Ebert wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times that "Mike Nichols' "Catch-22" is a disappointment, and not simply because it fails to do justice to the Heller novel."
Jim and Doug appreciated these movies considerably more than Weiler or Ebert appreciated the films originally. As a Double Feature the films highlight Heller's vision despite the differences in style, mood, theme and intent.
Coming in July: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciVF-F-xi5s">The Wild Women of Wongo</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O4_s7UR3W4">Colossus and the Amazon Queen</a>. Both are available on youtube.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-06-27T21_02_01-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-06-27T21_02_01-07_00Sat, 28 Jun 2014 04:02:01 GMT2015-07-292014-06-28http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainheller,curtis,wood,catch22,sex,movies,hollywood,reviews0no44Joseph Heller's screenplay Sex and the Single Girl and the movie version of his novel Catch 22 are put under the microscope in this episode of the Double Feature Review. Jim Farris and Douglas Lain are the hosts of what is sure to become the most important film review podcast of all time.
Back in 1964 AH Weiler, writing for the New York Times, declared that Sex and the Single Girl was "not the worst picture ever made, girls and boys. No kidding." While in 1970 Roger Ebert wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times that "Mike Nichols' "Catch-22" is a disappointment, and not simply because it fails to do justice to the Heller novel."
Jim and Doug appreciated these movies considerably more than Weiler or Ebert appreciated the films originally. As a Double Feature the films highlight Heller's vision despite the differences in style, mood, theme and intent.
Coming in July: The Wild Women of Wongo and Colossus and the Amazon Queen. Both are available on youtube.
Joseph Heller's screenplay Sex and the Single Girl and the movie version of his novel Catch 22 ar...Diet Soap Podcast #213: The 666ties<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9695038.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Robert N Lee is the guest this week as we discuss his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Live-Lady-Down-Town-666ties-ebook/dp/B00GT27RJA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403323723&sr=8-1&keywords=666ties">666ties series</a> of independent novellas. Robert N. Lee is an author, an editor, and a graphic designer, his website is <a href="www.Awesomedome.com">Awesomedome.com</a> and the cover art for this week's episode is his work and I urge you all to take a look at the image with this week's show notes.
I should also point out that the final collage is taken from youtube. The youtube star FarOff created the mashup you hear at the end. Here's a link to <a href="http://youtu.be/MPtWh5XjiH0">The Bealtes vs LCD Soundsystem vs The Kinks</a>.
This week I want to thank Daniel W for his generous donation to the podcast and urge all of you who are listening to find the paypal buttons at <a href="http://dietsoap.podomatic.com">dietsoap.podomatic.com</a>. You can also follow me on Facebook, twitter, and send me an email through my blog which is douglaslain.com.
In upcoming episodes of Diet Soap I'll be discussing Lacan and Melanie Klein with a psychoanalyst, analyzing Columbo, discussing Feminism, Marxism, and twitter character assassinations, and, as always talking about Star Trek and Value theory. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-06-20T21_13_47-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-06-20T21_13_47-07_00Sat, 21 Jun 2014 04:13:47 GMT2015-07-292014-06-21http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainnovellas,literature,robert,n,lee,fiction,surrealism,weird,po-mo,postmodern,mashup0no45Robert N Lee is the guest this week as we discuss his 666ties series of independent novellas. Robert N. Lee is an author, an editor, and a graphic designer, his website is Awesomedome.com and the cover art for this week's episode is his work and I urge you all to take a look at the image with this week's show notes.
I should also point out that the final collage is taken from youtube. The youtube star FarOff created the mashup you hear at the end. Here's a link to The Bealtes vs LCD Soundsystem vs The Kinks.
This week I want to thank Daniel W for his generous donation to the podcast and urge all of you who are listening to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. You can also follow me on Facebook, twitter, and send me an email through my blog which is douglaslain.com.
In upcoming episodes of Diet Soap I'll be discussing Lacan and Melanie Klein with a psychoanalyst, analyzing Columbo, discussing Feminism, Marxism, and twitter character assassinations, and, as always talking about Star Trek and Value theory. Robert N Lee is the guest this week as we discuss his 666ties series of independent novellas. Rob...Diet Soap Podcast #212: The Imperial Risk<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9653992.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Margaret Kimberley discusses imperialism on this week's episode. A regular <a href="http://blackagendareport.com/?q=blog/17">columnist for the Black Agenda Report</a>, Margaret Kimberley is also a regular guest on the podcast, and we discuss Imperialism, the Ukraine, and the game of Risk that is Capitalism.
It's Friday, June 6th, 2014, and I'm Douglas Lain the host of this podcast.
I want to thank my regular donors. This week Andy Marshall, Jacob L, John Spillane, Ted F, and John L paid for the hosting of Diet Soap on podomatic and bluebrry.com. In addition I want to thank Felix B for his one time donation. Thanks, Felix!
Those regular listeners who have yet to donate to Diet Soap, this summer would be a good time. My hours have been cut at the Symphony because this our slow season, so any extra donations would be much appreciated. This reduction in my work hours also means I'll have more time to dedicate to this podcast as well as to the new Double Feature Review podcast and to Zero Time, a podcast that I'm putting together for Zero Books. If you like the sound of my voice for some strange reason you'll have three places to hear it.
Again I want to thank Margaret Kimberley for coming on the show again. While it's true that even after this episode I am still wrestling with the idea of Imperialism (I don't know how well what I think of as Imperialism fits with my wannabe Marxism and my dogged focus on exploitation, the means of production, Value, and all the rest) talking to Kimberley is always a joy.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-06-07T08_30_15-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-06-07T08_30_15-07_00Sat, 07 Jun 2014 15:30:15 GMT2015-07-292014-06-07http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmargaret,imperialism,blackagendareport,ukraine,crimea,marx0no46Margaret Kimberley discusses imperialism on this week's episode. A regular columnist for the Black Agenda Report, Margaret Kimberley is also a regular guest on the podcast, and we discuss Imperialism, the Ukraine, and the game of Risk that is Capitalism.
It's Friday, June 6th, 2014, and I'm Douglas Lain the host of this podcast.
I want to thank my regular donors. This week Andy Marshall, Jacob L, John Spillane, Ted F, and John L paid for the hosting of Diet Soap on podomatic and bluebrry.com. In addition I want to thank Felix B for his one time donation. Thanks, Felix!
Those regular listeners who have yet to donate to Diet Soap, this summer would be a good time. My hours have been cut at the Symphony because this our slow season, so any extra donations would be much appreciated. This reduction in my work hours also means I'll have more time to dedicate to this podcast as well as to the new Double Feature Review podcast and to Zero Time, a podcast that I'm putting together for Zero Books. If you like the sound of my voice for some strange reason you'll have three places to hear it.
Again I want to thank Margaret Kimberley for coming on the show again. While it's true that even after this episode I am still wrestling with the idea of Imperialism (I don't know how well what I think of as Imperialism fits with my wannabe Marxism and my dogged focus on exploitation, the means of production, Value, and all the rest) talking to Kimberley is always a joy.
Margaret Kimberley discusses imperialism on this week's episode. A regular columnist for the Blac...Double Feature Review #2: Dredding Red Dawn<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9609846.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Red Dawn 2012 and Dredd are the two films for this month's Double Feature Review podcast with Jim Farris and Douglas Lain. It's landing here, on the Diet Soap podcast feed, but will also be getting its own RSS feed this week. Again, Jim Farris is a grumpy old man with a history in Hollywood whose knowledge of movies and movie history is extensive and Douglas Lain is this guy Jim knows.
A quick Synopsis: Doug enjoyed Dredd a bit more than Jim did while both lamented the existence of Red Dawn. Some topics discussed include Gilles Deleuze's notion of affective filmmaking and the noble history of product placement in cinema.
From Red Dawn:
Matt Eckert: We're not doing too bad for a bunch of kids. We're gonna fight, and we're gonna keep fighting, because it's easier now. And we're used to it. The rest of you are going to have a tougher choice. Because we're not going to sell it to you. It's too ugly for that. But when you're fighting in your own backyard, when you're fighting for your family, it all hurts a little less, and makes a little more sense. Because for them, this is just a place. But for us, this is our home.
Prisoners: [repeatedly chanting in open rebellion against guards before liberation] Wolverines!http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-05-25T01_28_53-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-05-25T01_28_53-07_00Sun, 25 May 2014 08:28:53 GMT2015-07-292014-05-25http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmovies,red,dawn,dredd,farris,comedy0no47Red Dawn 2012 and Dredd are the two films for this month's Double Feature Review podcast with Jim Farris and Douglas Lain. It's landing here, on the Diet Soap podcast feed, but will also be getting its own RSS feed this week. Again, Jim Farris is a grumpy old man with a history in Hollywood whose knowledge of movies and movie history is extensive and Douglas Lain is this guy Jim knows.
A quick Synopsis: Doug enjoyed Dredd a bit more than Jim did while both lamented the existence of Red Dawn. Some topics discussed include Gilles Deleuze's notion of affective filmmaking and the noble history of product placement in cinema.
From Red Dawn:
Matt Eckert: We're not doing too bad for a bunch of kids. We're gonna fight, and we're gonna keep fighting, because it's easier now. And we're used to it. The rest of you are going to have a tougher choice. Because we're not going to sell it to you. It's too ugly for that. But when you're fighting in your own backyard, when you're fighting for your family, it all hurts a little less, and makes a little more sense. Because for them, this is just a place. But for us, this is our home.
Prisoners: [repeatedly chanting in open rebellion against guards before liberation] Wolverines!Red Dawn 2012 and Dredd are the two films for this month's Double Feature Review podcast with Jim...Diet Soap Podcast Special: Modernity, the Cage, Star Trek<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9586198.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Modernity and Star Trek is the subject this week as my son Benjamin joins me on the podcast. I'm making slow progress on "How to Watch Star Trek (a geek's guide to modern life)" for Zero Books and I thought, as motivation, I'd start recording these conversational summaries as I go along. This week we talked, for a short while, about what modernity is, the death of God, Descartes, and the pilot episode of Star Trek entitled "The Cage."
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-05-17T12_08_01-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-05-17T12_08_01-07_00Sat, 17 May 2014 19:08:01 GMT2015-07-292014-05-17http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainstartrek,modernity,modern,descartes,nietzsche,cage,eilidh,bradley0no48Modernity and Star Trek is the subject this week as my son Benjamin joins me on the podcast. I'm making slow progress on "How to Watch Star Trek (a geek's guide to modern life)" for Zero Books and I thought, as motivation, I'd start recording these conversational summaries as I go along. This week we talked, for a short while, about what modernity is, the death of God, Descartes, and the pilot episode of Star Trek entitled "The Cage."
Modernity and Star Trek is the subject this week as my son Benjamin joins me on the podcast. I'm ...Diet Soap Podcast #211: The Concept of Meta<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9539243.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />"Meta" is the topic this week as Daniel Coffeen and I discuss his essay <a href="http://hilariousbookbinder.blogspot.com/2014/02/meta-shmeta-community-postmodernity.html">Meta Shmeta: Postmodernity, & the False Metaphor of the Fourth Wall</a>. Coffeen is a regular guest on Diet Soap.
Per the Urban Dictionary "Meta" is a term, especially in art, used to characterize something that is characteristically self-referential.
I want to thank John L for donating and to encourage you, the person who is listening, who has listened for years, but who has yet to donate, to find the paypal buttons at <a href="http://dietsoap.podomatic.com">dietsoap.podomatic.com</a> and help out. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, or find my dead myspace page and listen some groovy Midis I uploaded in 2002.
Upcoming episodes of Diet Soap will include conversations with Jason Horsley, Margaret Kimberley, Robert Lee, and more. The second Double Feature Review podcast with Jim Farris is coming and I'll be doing a Zero Books Podcast with David blacker. That one is tentatively titled Zero Time and should be out in June. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-05-03T14_15_16-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-05-03T14_15_16-07_00Sat, 03 May 2014 21:15:16 GMT2015-07-292014-05-03http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainideology,marxism,philosophy,meta,metafiction,letterman3581no49"Meta" is the topic this week as Daniel Coffeen and I discuss his essay Meta Shmeta: Postmodernity, & the False Metaphor of the Fourth Wall. Coffeen is a regular guest on Diet Soap.
Per the Urban Dictionary "Meta" is a term, especially in art, used to characterize something that is characteristically self-referential.
I want to thank John L for donating and to encourage you, the person who is listening, who has listened for years, but who has yet to donate, to find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com and help out. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, or find my dead myspace page and listen some groovy Midis I uploaded in 2002.
Upcoming episodes of Diet Soap will include conversations with Jason Horsley, Margaret Kimberley, Robert Lee, and more. The second Double Feature Review podcast with Jim Farris is coming and I'll be doing a Zero Books Podcast with David blacker. That one is tentatively titled Zero Time and should be out in June. "Meta" is the topic this week as Daniel Coffeen and I discuss his essay Meta Shmeta: Postmodernit...Diet Soap Podcast #210: Your Own Personal Žižek<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9513914.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Slavoj Žižek is the subject of conversation this week with guest George Elerick. Elerick is a faculty fellow at the <a href="http://www.globaladvancedstudies.org/">Global Center for Advanced Studies</a> and a writer on Critical Theory at the Huffington Post. We speak about his visit to The International Zizek Studies Conference in Cincinnati last month, and about his chance to interview Žižek. Elerick made an effort to find out about the personal side of the Marxoid Lacanian, but his questions met what a psychoanalyst might call resistance.
Of course in Astra Taylor's film Žižek! the philosopher made his position on personal questions clear: "I am not human, I am a monster, I claim. It's not that I have a mask of a theoretician and beneath I am a more human person; I like chocolate cake, I like this, I like that, and so on which makes me human. I rather prefer myself as somebody who not to offend others, pretends, plays that he is human."
Thanks goes out to my subscribers and one time donors. If you'd like to donate you can find the paypal button at <a href="http://dietsoap.podomatic.com">dietsoap.oprodomatic.com</a>. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-04-25T22_49_32-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-04-25T22_49_32-07_00Sat, 26 Apr 2014 05:49:32 GMT2015-07-292014-04-26http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,zizek,postmodernism,architecture,post-structuralism3535no50Slavoj Žižek is the subject of conversation this week with guest George Elerick. Elerick is a faculty fellow at the Global Center for Advanced Studies and a writer on Critical Theory at the Huffington Post. We speak about his visit to The International Zizek Studies Conference in Cincinnati last month, and about his chance to interview Žižek. Elerick made an effort to find out about the personal side of the Marxoid Lacanian, but his questions met what a psychoanalyst might call resistance.
Of course in Astra Taylor's film Žižek! the philosopher made his position on personal questions clear: "I am not human, I am a monster, I claim. It's not that I have a mask of a theoretician and beneath I am a more human person; I like chocolate cake, I like this, I like that, and so on which makes me human. I rather prefer myself as somebody who not to offend others, pretends, plays that he is human."
Thanks goes out to my subscribers and one time donors. If you'd like to donate you can find the paypal button at dietsoap.oprodomatic.com. Slavoj Žižek is the subject of conversation this week with guest George Elerick. Elerick is a fac...Diet Soap Podcast #209: Are Corporations Really Hogging Workers' Wages?<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9490720.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is Andrew Kliman. Kliman is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Failure-Capitalist-Production-Underlying/dp/0745332390">The Failure of Capitalist Production</a> and a regular guest on the Diet Soap podcast. This is a conversation about Kliman's recent essay for Truthdig! <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/are_corporations_really_stealing_workers_wages_20140409">Are Corporations Really Hogging Workers' Wages?</a>
Andrew's answer is no. He says in the essay:
<i>Careful analysis shows that before the recession, average hourly compensation of employees at large did keep pace with productivity—unless “compensation” and “productivity” are measured in a highly misleading way.</i>
Also on this podcast I announce the coming of a new podcast. I will be co-hosting a biweekly podcast for Zero Books starting in late May. David Blacker is the other host and we've decided on a direct and simple title: The Zero Books Hour. The podcast will be an interview show featuring authors from Zero Books as well as other cultural studies and critical theory presses. The aim will be to corrupt both the young and the old. Look for it and listen.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-04-19T00_06_09-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-04-19T00_06_09-07_00Sat, 19 Apr 2014 07:06:09 GMT2015-07-292014-04-19http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,economics,wages,productivity,inequality,crisis,kliman0no51The guest this week is Andrew Kliman. Kliman is the author of The Failure of Capitalist Production and a regular guest on the Diet Soap podcast. This is a conversation about Kliman's recent essay for Truthdig! Are Corporations Really Hogging Workers' Wages?
Andrew's answer is no. He says in the essay:
Careful analysis shows that before the recession, average hourly compensation of employees at large did keep pace with productivity—unless “compensation” and “productivity” are measured in a highly misleading way.
Also on this podcast I announce the coming of a new podcast. I will be co-hosting a biweekly podcast for Zero Books starting in late May. David Blacker is the other host and we've decided on a direct and simple title: The Zero Books Hour. The podcast will be an interview show featuring authors from Zero Books as well as other cultural studies and critical theory presses. The aim will be to corrupt both the young and the old. Look for it and listen.The guest this week is Andrew Kliman. Kliman is the author of The Failure of Capitalist Producti...Double Feature Podcast #1: Cloverfield and Planet of the Apes<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9465874.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The Double Feature podcast with Jim Farris and Douglas Lain is landing here, on the Diet Soap podcast feed, until it finds it's own home. This is a bit different from the Former People podcast in so much as it isn't as high brow and will take a look at more B pictures and middle brow fare. It is also different in so much as Jim Farris is a grumpy old man with a history in Hollywood whose knowledge of movies and movie history is extensive rather than a poet or an aesthete or something else grand like that.
The films reviewed in this first podcast are Franklin J. Schaffner's "Planet of the Apes," and JJ Abram's "Cloverfield."
On Cloverfield Farris believes that the film comments on 9/11 in the way Godzilla commented on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whereas I believe the film fails to comment on anything but affirms our cultural narcissism through its single camera perspective.
Both of us enjoyed Planet of the Apes quite a lot, especially Heston's performance. Cut from this episode is a discussion of the character Nova because Douglas liked this character too much and it made everybody sick to their stomach to listen to him talk about her.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-04-11T10_19_14-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-04-11T10_19_14-07_00Fri, 11 Apr 2014 17:19:14 GMT2015-07-292014-04-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmovies,cloverfield,planet,of,the,apes,criticism,review,comedy2432yes52The Double Feature podcast with Jim Farris and Douglas Lain is landing here, on the Diet Soap podcast feed, until it finds it's own home. This is a bit different from the Former People podcast in so much as it isn't as high brow and will take a look at more B pictures and middle brow fare. It is also different in so much as Jim Farris is a grumpy old man with a history in Hollywood whose knowledge of movies and movie history is extensive rather than a poet or an aesthete or something else grand like that.
The films reviewed in this first podcast are Franklin J. Schaffner's "Planet of the Apes," and JJ Abram's "Cloverfield."
On Cloverfield Farris believes that the film comments on 9/11 in the way Godzilla commented on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whereas I believe the film fails to comment on anything but affirms our cultural narcissism through its single camera perspective.
Both of us enjoyed Planet of the Apes quite a lot, especially Heston's performance. Cut from this episode is a discussion of the character Nova because Douglas liked this character too much and it made everybody sick to their stomach to listen to him talk about her.
The Double Feature podcast with Jim Farris and Douglas Lain is landing here, on the Diet Soap pod...Diet Soap Podcast #208: Egyptian Impasse/After the Impossible<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9438393.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the philosophy professor and no good commie David Blacker. Blacker is the author of the book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Rate-Learning-Neoliberal-Endgame/dp/1780995784">The Falling Rate of Learning</a>" from Zero Books, but this week we discuss his vacation to Cairo Egypt and why he hates anarchists. Blacker is a regular guest and I was glad to talk to him again.
I want to thank John L, John Spillane, Andy M, and Jacob L for their recurring donations to the podcast and to thank Jake C for making a one time donation to the podcast. And urge everyone who enjoys Diet Soap to consider pressing on the paypal buttons and dietsoap.podomatic.com. You can also follow me on twitter, friend me on Facebook, send me an email through my website which is doulgaslain.com.
As some of you may have heard I have started writing a book called "How to Watch Star Trek" for Blacker's publisher Zero Books, and I hope to share excerpts from the book as I go along. I also hope to talk to Andrew Kliman, Daniel Coffeen, Andy Marshall, Jason Horsley, and Margaret Kimberley in the weeks to come and maybe even talk to some new people as well. I'd really like to interview the author Jonathan Crary whose book 24/7 describes my life, for instance, and I also hope to land an interview with the editor at Verso who recently released a collection of Althusser's essays. There will also be more film podcasts from Former People and a new possibly recurring movie podcast with my friend Jim Farris.
The music you're listening to right now is Steve Martin's King Tut as performed by Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers, but in just a moment you'll be listening to David Blacker and I discuss An Egyptian Impasse/After the Impossible.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-04-03T23_02_22-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-04-03T23_02_22-07_00Fri, 04 Apr 2014 06:02:22 GMT2015-07-292014-04-04http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainegypt,anarchism,revolution,protest,mubarak,morsi,naguib3429no53The guest this week is the philosophy professor and no good commie David Blacker. Blacker is the author of the book "The Falling Rate of Learning" from Zero Books, but this week we discuss his vacation to Cairo Egypt and why he hates anarchists. Blacker is a regular guest and I was glad to talk to him again.
I want to thank John L, John Spillane, Andy M, and Jacob L for their recurring donations to the podcast and to thank Jake C for making a one time donation to the podcast. And urge everyone who enjoys Diet Soap to consider pressing on the paypal buttons and dietsoap.podomatic.com. You can also follow me on twitter, friend me on Facebook, send me an email through my website which is doulgaslain.com.
As some of you may have heard I have started writing a book called "How to Watch Star Trek" for Blacker's publisher Zero Books, and I hope to share excerpts from the book as I go along. I also hope to talk to Andrew Kliman, Daniel Coffeen, Andy Marshall, Jason Horsley, and Margaret Kimberley in the weeks to come and maybe even talk to some new people as well. I'd really like to interview the author Jonathan Crary whose book 24/7 describes my life, for instance, and I also hope to land an interview with the editor at Verso who recently released a collection of Althusser's essays. There will also be more film podcasts from Former People and a new possibly recurring movie podcast with my friend Jim Farris.
The music you're listening to right now is Steve Martin's King Tut as performed by Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers, but in just a moment you'll be listening to David Blacker and I discuss An Egyptian Impasse/After the Impossible.The guest this week is the philosophy professor and no good commie David Blacker. Blacker is the ...One Thousand Words Rerun: Manet's Rue Mosnier with Flags<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9408041.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Due to lack of sleep and poor sound quality on a recording for the Avant Garde edition of <a href="http://formerpeople.wordpress.com/">Former People</a> I am rerunning an episode of a now defunct podcast I created with my son Benjamin. This is episode three and we discussed Edouard Manet's "The Rue Mosnier with Flags," Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann's renovation and modernization of Paris in the mid 19th century, and the notion of a dérive.
In the weeks to come on Diet Soap I will be running a conversation with Jason Horsley, David Blacker, Andy Marshall and I hope to talk to Pat Cadigan. I also hope to create podcasts that will track my progress with my book, "How to Watch Star Trek" which I need to write and submit to <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/">Zero Books</a>.
According to wikipedia: <i>"The Rue Mosnier Decked with Flags depicts red, white, and blue pennants covering buildings on either side of the street; another painting of the same title features a one-legged man walking with crutches.</i>
Benjamin and I discuss this second painting in this episode.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-03-26T23_24_13-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-03-26T23_24_13-07_00Thu, 27 Mar 2014 06:24:13 GMT2015-07-292014-03-27http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainart,manet,avant,garde,modernism,haussmann,paris1174no54Due to lack of sleep and poor sound quality on a recording for the Avant Garde edition of Former People I am rerunning an episode of a now defunct podcast I created with my son Benjamin. This is episode three and we discussed Edouard Manet's "The Rue Mosnier with Flags," Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann's renovation and modernization of Paris in the mid 19th century, and the notion of a dérive.
In the weeks to come on Diet Soap I will be running a conversation with Jason Horsley, David Blacker, Andy Marshall and I hope to talk to Pat Cadigan. I also hope to create podcasts that will track my progress with my book, "How to Watch Star Trek" which I need to write and submit to Zero Books.
According to wikipedia: "The Rue Mosnier Decked with Flags depicts red, white, and blue pennants covering buildings on either side of the street; another painting of the same title features a one-legged man walking with crutches.
Benjamin and I discuss this second painting in this episode.
Due to lack of sleep and poor sound quality on a recording for the Avant Garde edition of Former ...Diet Soap Podcast #207: Difference and a Space Odyssey<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9387833.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the pop philosopher <a href="http://hilariousbookbinder.blogspot.com/">Daniel Coffeen</a>. Mister Coffeen is a recurring guest to Diet Soap and this week we discuss aliens, alienation, difference, 2001 and the Men in Black.
I want to thank Felix B for making a one time donation to the podcast and urge everyone who enjoys Diet Soap to consider pressing on the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. You can also follow me on twitter, friend me on Facebook, send me an email through my website (that's <a href="http://douglaslain.com">douglaslain.com</a>) or just wait for the visitors to bring me a message.
At the start of this episode Daniel Coffeen and I mention a critical <a href="http://vadeker.net/articles/cinema/kubrick/comments_2001_margaret_stackhouse.html">outline/essay</a> about Kubrick's film 2001 that was written by Margaret Stackhouse when she was a junior at North Plainfield High School in 70s. The essay was originally published in Jerome Agel's book "The Making of 2001." Here's an excerpt from her essay/outline:
<i>
I. The monolith - source of infinite knowledge and intelligence
A. Perfection represented in its shape; its color -- black --
could symbolize:
1. Evil and death, which result from man's misuse of knowledge;
2. The incomprehensible -- man, with his limited senses, cannot
comprehend the absence (perfect black) of color or light</i>
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-03-21T07_32_35-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-03-21T07_32_35-07_00Fri, 21 Mar 2014 14:32:35 GMT2015-07-292014-03-21http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainkubrick,mib,2001,deleuze,rhetoric,philosophy,ideology,zizek,levinson,aliens,ufo3164no55The guest this week is the pop philosopher Daniel Coffeen. Mister Coffeen is a recurring guest to Diet Soap and this week we discuss aliens, alienation, difference, 2001 and the Men in Black.
I want to thank Felix B for making a one time donation to the podcast and urge everyone who enjoys Diet Soap to consider pressing on the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. You can also follow me on twitter, friend me on Facebook, send me an email through my website (that's douglaslain.com) or just wait for the visitors to bring me a message.
At the start of this episode Daniel Coffeen and I mention a critical outline/essay about Kubrick's film 2001 that was written by Margaret Stackhouse when she was a junior at North Plainfield High School in 70s. The essay was originally published in Jerome Agel's book "The Making of 2001." Here's an excerpt from her essay/outline:
I. The monolith - source of infinite knowledge and intelligence
A. Perfection represented in its shape; its color -- black --
could symbolize:
1. Evil and death, which result from man's misuse of knowledge;
2. The incomprehensible -- man, with his limited senses, cannot
comprehend the absence (perfect black) of color or light
The guest this week is the pop philosopher Daniel Coffeen. Mister Coffeen is a recurring guest t...Diet Soap Podcast #206: How to Occupy Time<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9333927.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /> The guest this week is Dr. Jason Adams. Jason Adams is Co-Founder and Co-Director of the <a href="http://www.globaladvancedstudies.org/">Global Center for Advanced Studies</a> and the author of the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Occupy-Time-Technoculture-Immediacy-Resistance/dp/1137275588">Occupy Time: Technoculture, Immediacy, and Resistance after Occupy Wall Street</a>, a book that came out from Palgrave late last year. Jason and I discussed the difference between what is happening now and what is instantaneous or immediate, we talked about resistance as opposed to revolution and, at my insistence, we talked about time travel.
I want to thank Andy Marshall, Jacob L, John L, Ted F and John Spillane for donating as regular subscribers. John Spillane just signed up as a subscriber or recurring donor and Andy Marshall donated both as a subscriber and with a one time generous donation. And if you're listening and haven't given to the podcast before but like what you hear and would like to donate you can find the paypal buttons and dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, as Andy will tell you, the continuing Hegel workshops are doing just that, continuing, and becoming a regular or recurring donor is the best way to get an invite to join in. In fact, I need to make sure John Spillane is invited aboard.
Speaking of reading I recently finished a new short story and I thought I'd share it with the first five or so people who ask for a copy either through Facebook or by email.
The music you're listening to right now is the Pennsylvania Polka from the movie Groundhog's Day. The comic actor and film director Harold Ramis died a few days back and this week's podcast is dedicated to him and his masterpiece. Groundhog's Day, as a movie about Repetition and Difference, would be a great movie to watch as a follow up for this episode I think. So you might check to see if it's streaming on Netflix or somewhere, but right now get ready to listening to Jason Adams and I discuss How to Occupy Time.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-03-06T01_29_58-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-03-06T01_29_58-08_00Thu, 06 Mar 2014 09:29:58 GMT2015-07-292014-03-06http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,critical,occupy,temporality,theory3476no56 The guest this week is Dr. Jason Adams. Jason Adams is Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Global Center for Advanced Studies and the author of the book Occupy Time: Technoculture, Immediacy, and Resistance after Occupy Wall Street, a book that came out from Palgrave late last year. Jason and I discussed the difference between what is happening now and what is instantaneous or immediate, we talked about resistance as opposed to revolution and, at my insistence, we talked about time travel.
I want to thank Andy Marshall, Jacob L, John L, Ted F and John Spillane for donating as regular subscribers. John Spillane just signed up as a subscriber or recurring donor and Andy Marshall donated both as a subscriber and with a one time generous donation. And if you're listening and haven't given to the podcast before but like what you hear and would like to donate you can find the paypal buttons and dietsoap.podomatic.com. Also, as Andy will tell you, the continuing Hegel workshops are doing just that, continuing, and becoming a regular or recurring donor is the best way to get an invite to join in. In fact, I need to make sure John Spillane is invited aboard.
Speaking of reading I recently finished a new short story and I thought I'd share it with the first five or so people who ask for a copy either through Facebook or by email.
The music you're listening to right now is the Pennsylvania Polka from the movie Groundhog's Day. The comic actor and film director Harold Ramis died a few days back and this week's podcast is dedicated to him and his masterpiece. Groundhog's Day, as a movie about Repetition and Difference, would be a great movie to watch as a follow up for this episode I think. So you might check to see if it's streaming on Netflix or somewhere, but right now get ready to listening to Jason Adams and I discuss How to Occupy Time.
The guest this week is Dr. Jason Adams. Jason Adams is Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Global...Pop the Program #1: Waking Life <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9286596.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />This week marks the death of the podcast "Pop the Left" and the birth of a new podcast called "Pop the Program." Varn has grown tired of the left, profoundly tired of it, but he enjoys conversing about all manner of subjects with me, and in an effort to keep the conversation going we've renamed our joint effort. What you can expect in the future are conversations about literature, art, music, philosophy, and perhaps even conversations about dead white dudes like Marx or Guy Debord, but "the Left" will no longer be our primary subject.
This week, at the outset, we discuss the revolutionary ideas in Richard Linklater's 2001 film "Waking Life," and as such this first episode is a transitional podcast. It was recorded for "Pop the Left" but edited as the first episode of "Pop the Program."
Back in 2001 Roger Ebert celebrated Linklater's film and its release: <i>"Waking Life" could not come at a better time. Opening in these sad and fearful days after Sept. 11, it celebrates a series of articulate, intelligent characters who seek out the meaning of their existence and do not have the answers. At a time when madmen think they have the right to kill us because of what they think they know about an afterlife, which is by definition unknowable, those who don't know the answers are the only ones asking sane questions.</i>
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-02-20T13_22_27-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-02-20T13_22_27-08_00Thu, 20 Feb 2014 21:22:27 GMT2015-07-292014-02-20http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,art,linklater,revolution,gnostic,rotoscope,gen-x3913no57This week marks the death of the podcast "Pop the Left" and the birth of a new podcast called "Pop the Program." Varn has grown tired of the left, profoundly tired of it, but he enjoys conversing about all manner of subjects with me, and in an effort to keep the conversation going we've renamed our joint effort. What you can expect in the future are conversations about literature, art, music, philosophy, and perhaps even conversations about dead white dudes like Marx or Guy Debord, but "the Left" will no longer be our primary subject.
This week, at the outset, we discuss the revolutionary ideas in Richard Linklater's 2001 film "Waking Life," and as such this first episode is a transitional podcast. It was recorded for "Pop the Left" but edited as the first episode of "Pop the Program."
Back in 2001 Roger Ebert celebrated Linklater's film and its release: "Waking Life" could not come at a better time. Opening in these sad and fearful days after Sept. 11, it celebrates a series of articulate, intelligent characters who seek out the meaning of their existence and do not have the answers. At a time when madmen think they have the right to kill us because of what they think they know about an afterlife, which is by definition unknowable, those who don't know the answers are the only ones asking sane questions.
This week marks the death of the podcast "Pop the Left" and the birth of a new podcast called "Po...Diet Soap Podcast #205: Rats and Meat Cigars<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9237506.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is an old friend of mine and an author. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rat-House-David-W-Friedman/dp/1490524088">David Friedman</a> lived in Portland in the early 90s, and I met him at the now mythic <a href="http://s815.photobucket.com/user/LeahRose_02/media/PSU%20District%20Old%20Shattuck%20Neighborhood/TelecafeandBensonHouse-1.jpg.html">Telecafe</a>.At the time he was recovering from his rock star status and writing fiction. Today he has a book out, a novel, called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rat-House-David-W-Friedman/dp/1490524088">Rat House</a>. This is a cool novel, a bleak novel, a rock and roll novel. As one reviewer at Amazon put it, "<i>If you ever wanted to know what it's like to have nothing left to lose, what it's like to dream of turning this nothing into rock and roll, then this book is for you. David Friedman, of Meat Cigars fame, remembers the depravity and debauchery of almost rock godhood so you don't have to</i>."
Diet Soap relies on donations, and I want to thank Hylton L for donating and John L for his regular subscription to the podcast. If you'd like to donate to Diet Soap you can find the paypal buttons at <a href="http://dietsoap.podomatic.com">dietsoap.podomatic.com</a>. You can also follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or send me an email through my website: <a href="http://douglaslain.com">douglaslain.com</a>.
Here's an excerpt from David Friedman's book:
<i>I'd been drinking for three days straight. The tour had taken a lot out of me and I didn't want to be in the same room with the band. Unfortunately, Eugene wanted to talk about our upcoming gig. I slouched down in my seat and sucked on a beer to try to kill my hangover.
"The Northwest Music Association showcase gig is at The Vogue next week," he said standing in the living room, our instruments and amps forming a sei-circle around the drums. I looked at each of my band mates, in turn, to see their reactions. There were nods from each, although those nods signified nothing, more like a conditioned reflex. They didn't know what was on the line.
"This gig is our make or break moment. It is sink or swim," he said.</i>
In this episode you'll hear The <a href="http://alonetone.com/meatcigars">Meat Cigars'</a> "Mister Squiggly," "Underground,"and "Brain Death." You'll also hear a clip from Frank Zappa's cover of the Led Zeppelin hit "Stairway to Heaven,"the Ukulele Clan's cover of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing," and a string quartet cover of Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit."
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-02-06T13_44_22-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-02-06T13_44_22-08_00Thu, 06 Feb 2014 21:44:22 GMT2015-07-292014-02-06http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainart,rock,friedman,portland,portlandia,grunge,literature,meatcigars,demento,zappa,ukulele2801no58The guest this week is an old friend of mine and an author. David Friedman lived in Portland in the early 90s, and I met him at the now mythic Telecafe.At the time he was recovering from his rock star status and writing fiction. Today he has a book out, a novel, called Rat House. This is a cool novel, a bleak novel, a rock and roll novel. As one reviewer at Amazon put it, "If you ever wanted to know what it's like to have nothing left to lose, what it's like to dream of turning this nothing into rock and roll, then this book is for you. David Friedman, of Meat Cigars fame, remembers the depravity and debauchery of almost rock godhood so you don't have to."
Diet Soap relies on donations, and I want to thank Hylton L for donating and John L for his regular subscription to the podcast. If you'd like to donate to Diet Soap you can find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. You can also follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or send me an email through my website: douglaslain.com.
Here's an excerpt from David Friedman's book:
I'd been drinking for three days straight. The tour had taken a lot out of me and I didn't want to be in the same room with the band. Unfortunately, Eugene wanted to talk about our upcoming gig. I slouched down in my seat and sucked on a beer to try to kill my hangover.
"The Northwest Music Association showcase gig is at The Vogue next week," he said standing in the living room, our instruments and amps forming a sei-circle around the drums. I looked at each of my band mates, in turn, to see their reactions. There were nods from each, although those nods signified nothing, more like a conditioned reflex. They didn't know what was on the line.
"This gig is our make or break moment. It is sink or swim," he said.
In this episode you'll hear The Meat Cigars' "Mister Squiggly," "Underground,"and "Brain Death." You'll also hear a clip from Frank Zappa's cover of the Led Zeppelin hit "Stairway to Heaven,"the Ukulele Clan's cover of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing," and a string quartet cover of Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit."
The guest this week is an old friend of mine and an author. David Friedman lived in Portland in t...Diet Soap Podcast #204: Breaking Bad All the Way<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9210243.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is <a href="http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/">Mark Fisher</a>. Fisher is the author of the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Capitalist-Realism-there-alternative-Books/dp/1846943175">Capitalist Realism</a> and <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/books/ghosts-my-life">Ghosts of My Life (writings on depression, hauntology and lost futures)</a>. Fisher is also the author of <a href="http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/4448/beyond-good-and-evil">an essay on the hit television show Breaking Bad for the New Humanist magazine</a> and it's this essay which will be the subject of this week's podcast.
I want to thank my subscribers Jacob L and Andy M for their recurring donations and remind you that if you'd like to support the podcast you can find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com.
To set up this interview I thought I'd paste in an excerpt from Mark Fisher's essay:
<i>Who needs religion when you have television? On soap operas, unlike in life, villainous characters almost always face their comeuppance. TV cops may now be required to have “complicated” private lives and dubious personal ethics, but we’re seldom in any serious doubt about the difference between good and evil, and on which side of the line the maverick cop ultimately falls. The persistence of the fantasy that justice is guaranteed – a religious fantasy – wouldn’t have surprised the great thinkers of modernity. Theorists such as Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche and Marx argued that atheism was extremely difficult to practise. It’s all very well professing a lack of belief in God, but it’s much harder to give up the habits of thought which assume providence, divine justice and a secure distinction between good and evil.</i>
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-01-30T01_24_00-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-01-30T01_24_00-08_00Thu, 30 Jan 2014 09:24:00 GMT2015-07-292014-01-30http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainbreakingbad,fisher,nietzsche,kant,atheism,morality,ethics,meth,bryan,cranston3608no59The guest this week is Mark Fisher. Fisher is the author of the book Capitalist Realism and Ghosts of My Life (writings on depression, hauntology and lost futures). Fisher is also the author of an essay on the hit television show Breaking Bad for the New Humanist magazine and it's this essay which will be the subject of this week's podcast.
I want to thank my subscribers Jacob L and Andy M for their recurring donations and remind you that if you'd like to support the podcast you can find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com.
To set up this interview I thought I'd paste in an excerpt from Mark Fisher's essay:
Who needs religion when you have television? On soap operas, unlike in life, villainous characters almost always face their comeuppance. TV cops may now be required to have “complicated” private lives and dubious personal ethics, but we’re seldom in any serious doubt about the difference between good and evil, and on which side of the line the maverick cop ultimately falls. The persistence of the fantasy that justice is guaranteed – a religious fantasy – wouldn’t have surprised the great thinkers of modernity. Theorists such as Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche and Marx argued that atheism was extremely difficult to practise. It’s all very well professing a lack of belief in God, but it’s much harder to give up the habits of thought which assume providence, divine justice and a secure distinction between good and evil.
The guest this week is Mark Fisher. Fisher is the author of the book Capitalist Realism and Ghost...Diet Soap Podcast #203: That Bill Murray Moment<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9187146.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/authors/david-blacker">David Blacker</a> whose book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Rate-Learning-Neoliberal-Endgame/dp/1780995784">The Falling Rate of Learning</a> is currently out from Zero books. Blacker is a philosophy professor at the University of Delaware and this is part two of a two part conversation. This half is less focussed and more speculative. You'll hear me trying to articulate my own peculiar understanding of Zizek and Marx, or what C Derick Varn would call my Marxist Gnosticism. Bill Murray is mentioned.
I want to thank Brad P for his very generous one time donation as well as thank Ted F for being a subscriber to the podcast. If you'd like to donate you can find the Paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. You can also follow me on Facebook or Twitter. Or you can send me an email through my website, that's <a href="http://douglaslain.com">douglaslain.com</a>
In this episode you'll hear a rerun of an essay/collage I originally wrote for Thought Catalog and included in episode one hundred and four (which also included an interview with the mystic and theatre director Antero Ali). The essay/collage is called <a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/doug-lain/2011/05/the-symbiopsychotaxiplasm-of-adam-sandlers-click/">The Symbiopsychotaxiplasm of Adam Sandler's Click</a>. You'll also hear an excerpt from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdbnX4ZnnEw">episode eight of Robert Hughes "The Shock of the New,"</a> and a minute or so from the movie <a href="http://www.ghostbusters.com/">Ghostbusters</a>.
Right now you're listening to the band <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Bill-Murray-Experience/99298932331">The Bill Murray Experience</a> performing "Heebie Jeebies." But in just a moment you'll be listening to David Blacker and I discuss "That Bill Murray Moment."
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-01-23T10_32_28-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-01-23T10_32_28-08_00Thu, 23 Jan 2014 18:32:28 GMT2015-07-292014-01-23http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,philosophy,ghostbusters,metafiction,blacker,doomsters,apocalypse,symbiopsychotaxiplasm3321no60The guest this week is David Blacker whose book The Falling Rate of Learning is currently out from Zero books. Blacker is a philosophy professor at the University of Delaware and this is part two of a two part conversation. This half is less focussed and more speculative. You'll hear me trying to articulate my own peculiar understanding of Zizek and Marx, or what C Derick Varn would call my Marxist Gnosticism. Bill Murray is mentioned.
I want to thank Brad P for his very generous one time donation as well as thank Ted F for being a subscriber to the podcast. If you'd like to donate you can find the Paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. You can also follow me on Facebook or Twitter. Or you can send me an email through my website, that's douglaslain.com
In this episode you'll hear a rerun of an essay/collage I originally wrote for Thought Catalog and included in episode one hundred and four (which also included an interview with the mystic and theatre director Antero Ali). The essay/collage is called The Symbiopsychotaxiplasm of Adam Sandler's Click. You'll also hear an excerpt from episode eight of Robert Hughes "The Shock of the New," and a minute or so from the movie Ghostbusters.
Right now you're listening to the band The Bill Murray Experience performing "Heebie Jeebies." But in just a moment you'll be listening to David Blacker and I discuss "That Bill Murray Moment."
The guest this week is David Blacker whose book The Falling Rate of Learning is currently out fro...Diet Soap Podcast #202: Fatalism and Falling<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9164462.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is <a href="http://www.zero-books.net/authors/david-blacker">David Blacker</a> whose book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Falling-Rate-Learning-Neoliberal-Endgame/dp/1780995784">The Falling Rate of Learning</a> is currently out from Zero books. Blacker is a philosophy professor at the University of Delaware and a regular guest on Diet Soap. This time we discuss his book and the notion of fatalism. This is part one of a two part conversation.
I want to thank David W for his very generous one time donation as well as thank John L, Jacob L, and Andrew M for being subscribers. Right now I'm working on a new short story about Lucid Dreaming, a time travel birthday cake story, a rewrite of an old novel, the first chapter of a new novel, and I'm waiting for word on a book proposal for a nonfiction book about Marxism and Star Trek. When I manage to finish off any one of these projects I'm hoping to make advance copies available to you, my loyal listeners. In the meantime you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter. Or you can send me an email through my website, that's <a href="http://douglaslain.com">douglaslain.com</a>
In this episode you'll hear a reading of Nietzsche's madman parable, a clip from the Matrix, and the movie Reds.
From the Madman Parable:
<i>How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.</i>
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-01-16T10_44_50-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-01-16T10_44_50-08_00Thu, 16 Jan 2014 18:44:50 GMT2015-07-292014-01-16http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,education,fatalism,predestination,blacker,zerobooks3229no61The guest this week is David Blacker whose book The Falling Rate of Learning is currently out from Zero books. Blacker is a philosophy professor at the University of Delaware and a regular guest on Diet Soap. This time we discuss his book and the notion of fatalism. This is part one of a two part conversation.
I want to thank David W for his very generous one time donation as well as thank John L, Jacob L, and Andrew M for being subscribers. Right now I'm working on a new short story about Lucid Dreaming, a time travel birthday cake story, a rewrite of an old novel, the first chapter of a new novel, and I'm waiting for word on a book proposal for a nonfiction book about Marxism and Star Trek. When I manage to finish off any one of these projects I'm hoping to make advance copies available to you, my loyal listeners. In the meantime you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter. Or you can send me an email through my website, that's douglaslain.com
In this episode you'll hear a reading of Nietzsche's madman parable, a clip from the Matrix, and the movie Reds.
From the Madman Parable:
How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.
The guest this week is David Blacker whose book The Falling Rate of Learning is currently out fro...Diet Soap Podcast #201: Rick Roderick and the Political Unconscious<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9143605.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is professor and philosopher <a href="http://www.philosophy.emory.edu/facstaff/mcafee.shtml">Noelle McAfee</a> and we discuss her friendship with the late Rick Roderick and her book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Political-Unconscious-Directions-Critical/dp/0231138806">Democracy and the Political Unconscious</a>.
It's Thursday, January 9th, 2014, and I'm Douglas Lain the host of this podcast.
There were no new donations this week and if you'd like to correct that you can find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. I should also tell you to follow me on Twitter, facebook, linkedin, netlog (does anybody understand what that is?), stumbleupon, and google plus. My email is douglain at gmail dot com. You should read my blog at douglaslain.com, look for the Diet Soap facebook page, and buy all of my books on Amazon.com.
You'll hear a lot of clips of Rick Roderick in this episode as well as music from the Art of Noise, the theme from the motion picture The Candyman, Charles Ives 3 Quarter Tone Pieces, and Luc Ferrari's Societe II.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-01-09T00_20_55-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2014-01-09T00_20_55-08_00Thu, 09 Jan 2014 08:20:55 GMT2015-07-292014-01-09http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainunconscious,mcafee,roderick,philosophy,democracy,freud,marx3378no62The guest this week is professor and philosopher Noelle McAfee and we discuss her friendship with the late Rick Roderick and her book Democracy and the Political Unconscious.
It's Thursday, January 9th, 2014, and I'm Douglas Lain the host of this podcast.
There were no new donations this week and if you'd like to correct that you can find the paypal buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com. I should also tell you to follow me on Twitter, facebook, linkedin, netlog (does anybody understand what that is?), stumbleupon, and google plus. My email is douglain at gmail dot com. You should read my blog at douglaslain.com, look for the Diet Soap facebook page, and buy all of my books on Amazon.com.
You'll hear a lot of clips of Rick Roderick in this episode as well as music from the Art of Noise, the theme from the motion picture The Candyman, Charles Ives 3 Quarter Tone Pieces, and Luc Ferrari's Societe II.
The guest this week is professor and philosopher Noelle McAfee and we discuss her friendship with...Diet Soap Podcast #199: A Situationist Ideology? <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9095721.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/skepoet">C Derick Varn</a> returns this week and we discuss the <a href="http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/">Situationist International</a> or the SI. What you'll hear is not a theoretical explanation of the SI nor less an introduction to the history of the SI, but rather some personal reflections on how we first encountered the SI and what the SI has come to be within the Spectacle. To misquote Guy Debord:
<i>In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. And everything, even revolutionary theories, is reduced to fodder for snarky Facebook posts and monotonous podcasts where two guys drone on with their half baked impressions.</i>
I want to thank everyone for listening to this podcast and communicating with me on Facebook, on twitter, and through my blog that's douglaslain.com. Also I want to thank Shane S, Bob M, Caytlin G, and Michael P, Jason P and Michael P for donating to the podcast. And if you want to donate you can find the donate buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com.
At the end of this episode you'll find a ten minute excerpt from what was a 40 minute reading of my short story "The Dead Celebrity" from my short story collection <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Weeks-Apocalypse/dp/B00EYHDGHE/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=">Last Week's Apocalypse</a>. Nicholas Techosky is the narraotr.
You can find the rest of this story and nine more hours from that collection on audible, and I hope to get Nicholas on the podcast soon to talk about acting and voice acting.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-12-18T12_29_30-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-12-18T12_29_30-08_00Wed, 18 Dec 2013 20:29:30 GMT2015-07-292013-12-18http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Laindebord,si,situationist,spectacle,marxism,philosophy,80s3066no63C Derick Varn returns this week and we discuss the Situationist International or the SI. What you'll hear is not a theoretical explanation of the SI nor less an introduction to the history of the SI, but rather some personal reflections on how we first encountered the SI and what the SI has come to be within the Spectacle. To misquote Guy Debord:
In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. And everything, even revolutionary theories, is reduced to fodder for snarky Facebook posts and monotonous podcasts where two guys drone on with their half baked impressions.
I want to thank everyone for listening to this podcast and communicating with me on Facebook, on twitter, and through my blog that's douglaslain.com. Also I want to thank Shane S, Bob M, Caytlin G, and Michael P, Jason P and Michael P for donating to the podcast. And if you want to donate you can find the donate buttons at dietsoap.podomatic.com.
At the end of this episode you'll find a ten minute excerpt from what was a 40 minute reading of my short story "The Dead Celebrity" from my short story collection Last Week's Apocalypse. Nicholas Techosky is the narraotr.
You can find the rest of this story and nine more hours from that collection on audible, and I hope to get Nicholas on the podcast soon to talk about acting and voice acting.
C Derick Varn returns this week and we discuss the Situationist International or the SI. What yo...Diet Soap Podcast #198: The Joy Beyond Identity<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9055828.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the author and radical Mark Fisher. Mark and I discuss his recent essay for the North Star Blog called <a href="http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=11299">Exiting the Vampire Castle</a>. The essay takes on the politically correct reaction to the comedian <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk">Russell Brand's recent call for revolution</a>. Many leftists were perhaps overly skeptical of Brand, focusing on gaffes and slips rather than the content of his message (Brand admits to calling women birds, for instance.) Fisher's essay has caused quite an uproar, especially at the North Star Blog itself. There have been six essays written in response and there has been a split causing some editors to resign in solidarity with Brand and Fisher. My perspective, as always, is that Fisher isn't Marxist enough, meaning that his version of class isn't economic enough, or doesn't focus squarely on the way working people are exploited but describes class on the level of appearance only. Otherwise I find myself agreeing with Fisher.
I want to thank everyone for listening to this podcast and communicating with me on Facebook, on twitter, and through my blog that's douglaslain.com. Also I want to thank Andrew Marshall, Jason P and Michael P for their one time donations and also thank Andrew Marshall, Ted F, John L, and Jacob L for their continual monthly support.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-12-05T08_03_40-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-12-05T08_03_40-08_00Thu, 05 Dec 2013 16:03:40 GMT2015-07-292013-12-05http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,brand,correctness,identity,leftism3316no64The guest this week is the author and radical Mark Fisher. Mark and I discuss his recent essay for the North Star Blog called Exiting the Vampire Castle. The essay takes on the politically correct reaction to the comedian Russell Brand's recent call for revolution. Many leftists were perhaps overly skeptical of Brand, focusing on gaffes and slips rather than the content of his message (Brand admits to calling women birds, for instance.) Fisher's essay has caused quite an uproar, especially at the North Star Blog itself. There have been six essays written in response and there has been a split causing some editors to resign in solidarity with Brand and Fisher. My perspective, as always, is that Fisher isn't Marxist enough, meaning that his version of class isn't economic enough, or doesn't focus squarely on the way working people are exploited but describes class on the level of appearance only. Otherwise I find myself agreeing with Fisher.
I want to thank everyone for listening to this podcast and communicating with me on Facebook, on twitter, and through my blog that's douglaslain.com. Also I want to thank Andrew Marshall, Jason P and Michael P for their one time donations and also thank Andrew Marshall, Ted F, John L, and Jacob L for their continual monthly support.
The guest this week is the author and radical Mark Fisher. Mark and I discuss his recent essay fo...Diet Soap Podcast #197: Hyperobjects and the New Neurotic Ecology<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_9003561.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Professor and author Timothy Morton is the guest on this week's podcast and we discuss his new book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hyperobjects-Philosophy-Ecology-after-Posthumanities/dp/0816689237">Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. </a>
Kim Stanley Robins (author of the Mars trilogy) blurbed Morton's book as follows: <i> In Hyperobjects, Timothy Morton brings to bear his deep knowledge of a wide array of subjects to propose a new way of looking at our situation, which might allow us to take action toward the future health of the biosphere. Crucially, the relations between Buddhism and science, nature and culture, are examined in the fusion of a single vision. The result is a great work of cognitive mapping, both exciting and useful.</i>
To come on the podcast: Interviews with Noelle McAfee (friend of Rick Roderick), C Derick Varn, Andy Marshall, and many others. This week listen for a message about Paul McCartney.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-11-20T01_16_52-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-11-20T01_16_52-08_00Wed, 20 Nov 2013 09:16:52 GMT2015-07-292013-12-05http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainsurrealism,philosophy,ideology,ecology,beatles,neurosis3087no65Professor and author Timothy Morton is the guest on this week's podcast and we discuss his new book Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World.
Kim Stanley Robins (author of the Mars trilogy) blurbed Morton's book as follows: In Hyperobjects, Timothy Morton brings to bear his deep knowledge of a wide array of subjects to propose a new way of looking at our situation, which might allow us to take action toward the future health of the biosphere. Crucially, the relations between Buddhism and science, nature and culture, are examined in the fusion of a single vision. The result is a great work of cognitive mapping, both exciting and useful.
To come on the podcast: Interviews with Noelle McAfee (friend of Rick Roderick), C Derick Varn, Andy Marshall, and many others. This week listen for a message about Paul McCartney.
Professor and author Timothy Morton is the guest on this week's podcast and we discuss his new bo...Pop the Left #10: From Henry Flynt to an Electric Ant<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8963950.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />This month's Pop the Left features a conversation about Henry Flynt's lecture "<a href="http://vimeo.com/34621034">An Autopsy of the Left</a>." The conversation, as is typical, wanders, and in the end Varn and I end up mentioning the difficulty of escaping from our current ideology.
Henry Flynt is a musician, a member of Fluxus, and the last Communist standing. I wrote to him and asked him onto the podcast, but this email met with scorn and ridicule, which was really too bad. If you know Henry Flynt please tell him that I did not mean to insult him when I called him a commie.
For your edification here is a definition of Fluxus as lifted from wikipedia:
<i>Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "flow, flux" (noun); "flowing, fluid" (adj.)[1]—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning, architecture, and design. Fluxus is sometimes described as intermedia.</i>
In this episode you'll here a song inspired by the Philip K. Dick story "The Electric Ant" and a clip from "The Thirteenth Floor." Here's an essay I wrote for <a href="http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/03/understanding-hegel-with-philip-k-dick-on-the-thirteenth-floor">Tor.com</a> about both the short story and the movie.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-11-09T00_48_58-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-11-09T00_48_58-08_00Sat, 09 Nov 2013 08:48:58 GMT2015-07-292013-12-05http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainfluxus,communism,the,left,henry,flynt2845no66This month's Pop the Left features a conversation about Henry Flynt's lecture "An Autopsy of the Left." The conversation, as is typical, wanders, and in the end Varn and I end up mentioning the difficulty of escaping from our current ideology.
Henry Flynt is a musician, a member of Fluxus, and the last Communist standing. I wrote to him and asked him onto the podcast, but this email met with scorn and ridicule, which was really too bad. If you know Henry Flynt please tell him that I did not mean to insult him when I called him a commie.
For your edification here is a definition of Fluxus as lifted from wikipedia:
Fluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "flow, flux" (noun); "flowing, fluid" (adj.)[1]—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning, architecture, and design. Fluxus is sometimes described as intermedia.
In this episode you'll here a song inspired by the Philip K. Dick story "The Electric Ant" and a clip from "The Thirteenth Floor." Here's an essay I wrote for Tor.com about both the short story and the movie.
This month's Pop the Left features a conversation about Henry Flynt's lecture "An Autopsy of the ...Diet Soap Podcast #196: Answering the Potshots <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8929317.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the economist <a href="http://akliman.squarespace.com/writings/">Andrew Kliman</a>, and this week is rather unique because it is dedicated to answering some criticisms of his book The Failure of Capitalist production. Most leftists today hold that the economic crisis of 2007 and the consequent doldrums are the result of neoliberalism, that is the result of a conscious attack on the working classes by the ruling elite. The story goes this way: The capitalists saw that production, that is the productive part of the economy, empowered workers and opted to stop investing in real productive activity, or at least to slow this investment, as a political project to undermine the working class. Wage suppression was merely another aspect of what was an assault on workers. Kliman doesn't hold with this story. Instead he argues that Capitalist production has a tendency to undermine it's own reason for being, or that the rate of profit has a tendency to decline due to wholly unintended consequences. He has analyzed the economic data on hand and confirmed his theoretical position empirically. This has made many people on the left unhappy.
What you'll hear in this episode is a rather detailed refutation of objections to Kliman's analysis. Please do bear with us as we go through the accusations of bias, inaccuracy, and Jesuitical thinking.
As a special bonus there are a few sound collages and clips along the way, as well as an excerpt of the audio version of my first book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Weeks-Apocalypse/dp/B00EYHDGHE/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=">Last Week's Apocalypse</a>." This short story collection is now available on audible and I'm quite pleased by the way it's turned out.
If you'd like to contact me go to douglaslain.com, or follow me on Facebook or twitter. I'm always interested in what people are thinking. Next week you'll hear another episode of Pop the Left, and there is more to come after that.
Some links worth checking out:
<a href="http://akliman.squarespace.com/writings/">Andrew Kliman's Writings</a>
<a href="http://youtu.be/dwnie6tfPBU">Kliman on the Failure of Capitalist Production</a>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Capitalist-Production-Underlying-Recession/dp/0745332390/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383203531&sr=1-1&keywords=failure+of+capitalist+production">The Failure of Capitalist Production</a>http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-10-31T00_15_22-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-10-31T00_15_22-07_00Thu, 31 Oct 2013 07:15:22 GMT2015-07-292013-12-05http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,kliman,henwood,seymour,keynesian,underconsumptionism,capitalism,dogmatism,rhetoric3546no67The guest this week is the economist Andrew Kliman, and this week is rather unique because it is dedicated to answering some criticisms of his book The Failure of Capitalist production. Most leftists today hold that the economic crisis of 2007 and the consequent doldrums are the result of neoliberalism, that is the result of a conscious attack on the working classes by the ruling elite. The story goes this way: The capitalists saw that production, that is the productive part of the economy, empowered workers and opted to stop investing in real productive activity, or at least to slow this investment, as a political project to undermine the working class. Wage suppression was merely another aspect of what was an assault on workers. Kliman doesn't hold with this story. Instead he argues that Capitalist production has a tendency to undermine it's own reason for being, or that the rate of profit has a tendency to decline due to wholly unintended consequences. He has analyzed the economic data on hand and confirmed his theoretical position empirically. This has made many people on the left unhappy.
What you'll hear in this episode is a rather detailed refutation of objections to Kliman's analysis. Please do bear with us as we go through the accusations of bias, inaccuracy, and Jesuitical thinking.
As a special bonus there are a few sound collages and clips along the way, as well as an excerpt of the audio version of my first book "Last Week's Apocalypse." This short story collection is now available on audible and I'm quite pleased by the way it's turned out.
If you'd like to contact me go to douglaslain.com, or follow me on Facebook or twitter. I'm always interested in what people are thinking. Next week you'll hear another episode of Pop the Left, and there is more to come after that.
Some links worth checking out:
Andrew Kliman's Writings
Kliman on the Failure of Capitalist Production
The Failure of Capitalist ProductionThe guest this week is the economist Andrew Kliman, and this week is rather unique because it is ...Diet Soap Podcast #194: Raising Our Collective Consciousness<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8847325.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the radical thinker, writer, and editor <a href="http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/cc2010/anne-jaclard">Anne Jaclard.</a> Anne Jaclard is a long-time activist in the U.S. women’s movement and international solidarity movements and her current work concentrates on the theoretical and practical relationship of philosophy to revolutionary organization and we discussed her paper and lecture '<a href="http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/lets-mobilize-the-left-to-reject-the-dogma-that-workers-need-their-consciousness-raised">Let’s Mobilize the Left to Reject the Dogma that Workers Need their “Consciousness Raised</a>".'
I want to reiterate my thanks to everyone who donated to the Think the Impossible book and podcast tour through Kickstarter because this weekend you're sending me back to San Francisco where I'll be reading or performing as a part of the Writers with Drinks variety show at the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/35208228618/">Makeout Room </a>along with Kim Stanley Robinson, Tom Barbash, Kim Wong Keltner, Mollena "Mo" Williams, and Tatyana Brown. If you're in San Francisco I urge you to turn up. The Makeout room is at 3225 22nd. St.
There are a couple of sound clips in this episode. You'll hear the New Seekers and Chad African talking Coca-Cola along with Joan Baez and Noam Chomsky.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-10-09T13_59_25-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-10-09T13_59_25-07_00Wed, 09 Oct 2013 20:59:25 GMT2015-07-292013-12-05http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,activism,consciousness,elitism,vanguardism,ideology3209no68The guest this week is the radical thinker, writer, and editor Anne Jaclard. Anne Jaclard is a long-time activist in the U.S. women’s movement and international solidarity movements and her current work concentrates on the theoretical and practical relationship of philosophy to revolutionary organization and we discussed her paper and lecture 'Let’s Mobilize the Left to Reject the Dogma that Workers Need their “Consciousness Raised".'
I want to reiterate my thanks to everyone who donated to the Think the Impossible book and podcast tour through Kickstarter because this weekend you're sending me back to San Francisco where I'll be reading or performing as a part of the Writers with Drinks variety show at the Makeout Room along with Kim Stanley Robinson, Tom Barbash, Kim Wong Keltner, Mollena "Mo" Williams, and Tatyana Brown. If you're in San Francisco I urge you to turn up. The Makeout room is at 3225 22nd. St.
There are a couple of sound clips in this episode. You'll hear the New Seekers and Chad African talking Coca-Cola along with Joan Baez and Noam Chomsky.The guest this week is the radical thinker, writer, and editor Anne Jaclard. Anne Jaclard is a lo...Pop the Left #9: Is Žižek Dreaming Dangerously?<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8788485.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />This week I'm presenting the latest Pop the Left Special wherein C Derick Varn and I discuss Slavoj Žižek's little book "The Year of Dreaming Dangerously." Neither of us found the book to be either coherent or useful. My main complaint would be Žižek's failure to take Marx's critique of Capitalist political economy seriously and his abandonment of the Labor Theory of Value. The conclusion we reach is that Žižek is a worthwhile philosopher, but that his philosophy is not a firm foundation for the development of a politics or a movement. What Žižek does deliver is an imperative: "THINK!" It turns out that this imperative will require us to think beyond him.
In this episode you'll hear clips from the movie trailer for The Spectacular Now, a youtube mash-up of Zizek's lectures, Zizek at Occupy Wall Street, and a bit of a Diet Soap interview with the art historian TJ Clark. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-09-25T13_01_23-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-09-25T13_01_23-07_00Wed, 25 Sep 2013 20:01:23 GMT2015-07-292013-12-05http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,marxism,verso,clark3017no69This week I'm presenting the latest Pop the Left Special wherein C Derick Varn and I discuss Slavoj Žižek's little book "The Year of Dreaming Dangerously." Neither of us found the book to be either coherent or useful. My main complaint would be Žižek's failure to take Marx's critique of Capitalist political economy seriously and his abandonment of the Labor Theory of Value. The conclusion we reach is that Žižek is a worthwhile philosopher, but that his philosophy is not a firm foundation for the development of a politics or a movement. What Žižek does deliver is an imperative: "THINK!" It turns out that this imperative will require us to think beyond him.
In this episode you'll hear clips from the movie trailer for The Spectacular Now, a youtube mash-up of Zizek's lectures, Zizek at Occupy Wall Street, and a bit of a Diet Soap interview with the art historian TJ Clark. This week I'm presenting the latest Pop the Left Special wherein C Derick Varn and I discuss Slav...Diet Soap Special: Bluestockings Event<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8769821.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The Think the Impossible tour was a great success. I met up with many incredible people including Kevin Dole, Brad Potts, Andy Marshall, and Eilidh Bradley. Also, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Charley Earp, Terry Bisson, Daniel Coffeen, Margaret Kimberley, McKenzie Wark and Andrew Kliman all participated in the actual readings/events.
This week rather than a regular episode of Diet Soap you'll be hearing the audio from the Bluestockings event on Sunday, September 15th. Here's a description of that event as it was listed on the Bluestockings website:
<strong>Presentation: “Think the Impossible: Christopher Robin and May 1968″
With Douglas Lain, Mckenzie Wark, Margaret Kimberley, & Andrew Kilman </strong>
<em>Author and podcaster Douglas Lain will interview McKenzie Wark (author of the Hacker Manifesto) about the significance of May 1968 after Occupy, the economist Andrew Kliman about Capitalism and tendency for social movements to disappear, and Margaret Kimberley from the Black Agenda Report about the Spectacle and the Surveillance state. Lain will also explain why he wrote a novel about the real Christopher Robin’s (who inspired the Pooh stories) entirely fictional involvement with May 1968. McKenzie Wark is a professor of Media Studies at the New School for Social Research, and the author of books such as A Hacker Manifesto, and most recently, the Spectacle of Disintegration. Margaret Kimberley is a radical journalist whose Freedom Rider column appears weekly in the Black Agenda Report. A black left critic of the Obama administration, Kimberley is a regular guest on the Diet Soap podcast. Andrew Kliman is a professor of economics at Pace University and the author of “Reclaiming ‘Marx’s’ Capital” and “The Failure of Capitalist Production.” Douglas Lain is the host of Diet Soap, a weekly philosophy and politics podcast.
</em>
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-09-20T22_14_22-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-09-20T22_14_22-07_00Sat, 21 Sep 2013 05:14:22 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainkliman,wark,kimberley,bluestockings,nyc,billy,moon,snowden,spectacle,value6301no70The Think the Impossible tour was a great success. I met up with many incredible people including Kevin Dole, Brad Potts, Andy Marshall, and Eilidh Bradley. Also, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Charley Earp, Terry Bisson, Daniel Coffeen, Margaret Kimberley, McKenzie Wark and Andrew Kliman all participated in the actual readings/events.
This week rather than a regular episode of Diet Soap you'll be hearing the audio from the Bluestockings event on Sunday, September 15th. Here's a description of that event as it was listed on the Bluestockings website:
Presentation: “Think the Impossible: Christopher Robin and May 1968″
With Douglas Lain, Mckenzie Wark, Margaret Kimberley, & Andrew Kilman
Author and podcaster Douglas Lain will interview McKenzie Wark (author of the Hacker Manifesto) about the significance of May 1968 after Occupy, the economist Andrew Kliman about Capitalism and tendency for social movements to disappear, and Margaret Kimberley from the Black Agenda Report about the Spectacle and the Surveillance state. Lain will also explain why he wrote a novel about the real Christopher Robin’s (who inspired the Pooh stories) entirely fictional involvement with May 1968. McKenzie Wark is a professor of Media Studies at the New School for Social Research, and the author of books such as A Hacker Manifesto, and most recently, the Spectacle of Disintegration. Margaret Kimberley is a radical journalist whose Freedom Rider column appears weekly in the Black Agenda Report. A black left critic of the Obama administration, Kimberley is a regular guest on the Diet Soap podcast. Andrew Kliman is a professor of economics at Pace University and the author of “Reclaiming ‘Marx’s’ Capital” and “The Failure of Capitalist Production.” Douglas Lain is the host of Diet Soap, a weekly philosophy and politics podcast.
The Think the Impossible tour was a great success. I met up with many incredible people includin...Diet Soap Special: Borderlands Reading<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8731434.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Since I'm travelling on the Think the Impossible tour this week's podcast has been preempted by a reading at Borderlands Books in San Francisco. Today I am in Chicago getting ready for a reading at the Book Cellar at 4736-38 N Lincoln Ave. If you're in Chicago please do attend. Featured guests will include <a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/charleyearp">Charley Earp</a> and <a href="w.mamohanraj.com/index.php">Mary Anne Mohanraj</a>.
Guests at the San Francisco reading included <a href="http://www.terrybisson.com/">Terry Bisson</a> and <a href="http://hilariousbookbinder.blogspot.com/">Daniel Coffeen</a> and you'll hear us discuss May '68, utopia, and Bugs Bunny.
Promo material from Borderlands Reading:
<i>Douglas Lain, BILLY MOON (Tor, Hardcover, $24.99) with guests Terry Bisson and Daniel Coffeen Saturday, September 7th at 3:00 pm - We are happy to welcome Douglas Lain and guests Terry Bisson and Daniel Coffeen! Doug's new book is getting glowing reviews, including this starred Library Journal Review: "Christopher Robin Milne, aka "Billy Moon," has never quite outlived the image of him presented to the world by his father, the illustrious A. A. Milne. After service in World War II, Christopher and his wife operate a low-key bookstore (sans the tales of a certain stuffed bear). When a French college student invites him to Paris to witness the student uprisings in 1968, Christopher accepts on a whim -- and enters a scenario every bit as "magical" and much more dangerous than any from his fictional childhood. Lain's first novel combines two unlikely topics to form a tapestry of life in the late 1960s, when Europe, as well as America, experienced the revolutionary fervor of youth. Milne's friend and guide, Gerrard, has a curious relationship with time and space, and Milne finds himself caught up in the transient nature of both while seeking desperately to anchor himself to his real present. VERDICT - Luminous storytelling and brilliant period descriptions make this fictional biography a priceless addition to the American magical realism canon; the book should be recommended to fantasy and general fiction readers." Doug also brings us special guests Terry Bisson and Daniel Coffeen, who will add additional depth and dimension to the conversation with their own insights on the events of 1968 and magical world-building. Don't miss this extraordinary novel and this very special event!</i>http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-09-11T10_00_06-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-09-11T10_00_06-07_00Wed, 11 Sep 2013 17:00:06 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Laincoffeen,bisson,utopia,borderlands,reading,novel,impossible2831no71Since I'm travelling on the Think the Impossible tour this week's podcast has been preempted by a reading at Borderlands Books in San Francisco. Today I am in Chicago getting ready for a reading at the Book Cellar at 4736-38 N Lincoln Ave. If you're in Chicago please do attend. Featured guests will include Charley Earp and Mary Anne Mohanraj.
Guests at the San Francisco reading included Terry Bisson and Daniel Coffeen and you'll hear us discuss May '68, utopia, and Bugs Bunny.
Promo material from Borderlands Reading:
Douglas Lain, BILLY MOON (Tor, Hardcover, $24.99) with guests Terry Bisson and Daniel Coffeen Saturday, September 7th at 3:00 pm - We are happy to welcome Douglas Lain and guests Terry Bisson and Daniel Coffeen! Doug's new book is getting glowing reviews, including this starred Library Journal Review: "Christopher Robin Milne, aka "Billy Moon," has never quite outlived the image of him presented to the world by his father, the illustrious A. A. Milne. After service in World War II, Christopher and his wife operate a low-key bookstore (sans the tales of a certain stuffed bear). When a French college student invites him to Paris to witness the student uprisings in 1968, Christopher accepts on a whim -- and enters a scenario every bit as "magical" and much more dangerous than any from his fictional childhood. Lain's first novel combines two unlikely topics to form a tapestry of life in the late 1960s, when Europe, as well as America, experienced the revolutionary fervor of youth. Milne's friend and guide, Gerrard, has a curious relationship with time and space, and Milne finds himself caught up in the transient nature of both while seeking desperately to anchor himself to his real present. VERDICT - Luminous storytelling and brilliant period descriptions make this fictional biography a priceless addition to the American magical realism canon; the book should be recommended to fantasy and general fiction readers." Doug also brings us special guests Terry Bisson and Daniel Coffeen, who will add additional depth and dimension to the conversation with their own insights on the events of 1968 and magical world-building. Don't miss this extraordinary novel and this very special event!Since I'm travelling on the Think the Impossible tour this week's podcast has been preempted by a...Diet Soap Podcast Rerun <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8705384.jpeg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />Due to my harried schedule as I get ready to go on the Think the Impossible tour this week's Diet Soap is a rerun. We'll return to our regular schedule, if at all possible, when I reach Chicago on September 11th.
Old show notes follow:
itunes pic
I've decided that Diet Soap is the podcast of Late Capitalism, and in that vein the guest this week is Brendan Cooney. Cooney is an autodidact and youtube star, his videos include The Political Economy of Superman, What the Hell is Money, and his Law of Value Series. Cooney and I take a look at three other youtube stars and their theories about the crisis of Late Capitalism. We examine three other Marxists: David Harvey, Rick Wolff, and a little known value theorist Andrew Kliman.
I want to thank David B for his generous donation to the podcast. And if you've been thinking of donating to the podcast now is a good time because I still have copies of my book "Pick Your Battle: Your Guide to Urban Foraging, Hollywood Movies, Late Capitalism, and the Communist Alternative (a memoir)" left. A donation of $6 or more is a way to get a copy. Starting in mid October I'll make my next book, a novella called 'Wave of Mutilation' available through the podcast. This book has been called 'brilliant,' 'incredible,' 'non-linear,' 'obsessive compulsive,' 'hyper-real,' and 'incomprehensible.' One critic was so taken by the work that he reread the book twice before writing in to admit that he'd been beaten and would have to hang up his pen. Anyhow you'll be hearing excerpts from 'Wave of Mutilation' in the weeks to come. You'll get to hear the whole story such as it is.
This episode spends some time on David Harvey and Andrew Kliman. Next week we'll take on how Late Capitalism hits the fan, underconsumptionist theories and the phenomena that is Rick Wolff. It was fun talking to Cooney and interesting editing this episode together.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-09-04T22_32_28-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-09-04T22_32_28-07_00Thu, 05 Sep 2013 05:32:28 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,marxism,anarchism,podcast,theory3436no72Due to my harried schedule as I get ready to go on the Think the Impossible tour this week's Diet Soap is a rerun. We'll return to our regular schedule, if at all possible, when I reach Chicago on September 11th.
Old show notes follow:
itunes pic
I've decided that Diet Soap is the podcast of Late Capitalism, and in that vein the guest this week is Brendan Cooney. Cooney is an autodidact and youtube star, his videos include The Political Economy of Superman, What the Hell is Money, and his Law of Value Series. Cooney and I take a look at three other youtube stars and their theories about the crisis of Late Capitalism. We examine three other Marxists: David Harvey, Rick Wolff, and a little known value theorist Andrew Kliman.
I want to thank David B for his generous donation to the podcast. And if you've been thinking of donating to the podcast now is a good time because I still have copies of my book "Pick Your Battle: Your Guide to Urban Foraging, Hollywood Movies, Late Capitalism, and the Communist Alternative (a memoir)" left. A donation of $6 or more is a way to get a copy. Starting in mid October I'll make my next book, a novella called 'Wave of Mutilation' available through the podcast. This book has been called 'brilliant,' 'incredible,' 'non-linear,' 'obsessive compulsive,' 'hyper-real,' and 'incomprehensible.' One critic was so taken by the work that he reread the book twice before writing in to admit that he'd been beaten and would have to hang up his pen. Anyhow you'll be hearing excerpts from 'Wave of Mutilation' in the weeks to come. You'll get to hear the whole story such as it is.
This episode spends some time on David Harvey and Andrew Kliman. Next week we'll take on how Late Capitalism hits the fan, underconsumptionist theories and the phenomena that is Rick Wolff. It was fun talking to Cooney and interesting editing this episode together.Due to my harried schedule as I get ready to go on the Think the Impossible tour this week's Diet...Diet Soap Podcast #192: The Transrealism of Cyberpunk<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8680038.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the cyberpunk author, mathematician, and transrealist <a href="http://www.rudyrucker.com/">Rudy Rucker</a>, and we discuss his upcoming book <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rudyrucker/the-big-aha-a-novel">The Big Aha</a>.
My novel Billy Moon came out on Tuesday, August 27th, and I'm going to fly to Decatur, GA this weekend. I aim to record the reading in Decatur and possibly include it in next week's podcast. I will also soon be traveling to <a href="http://douglaslain.net/impossible-tour/">San Francisco, Chicago, and NYC</a> in order to promote the novel and this podcast on the Think the Impossible tour. I look forward to meeting people who have been listening to the podcast. I'll be at Borderlands in San Francisco on September 7th at 3pm, I'll be at the Book Cellar on September 11th at 7pm, and I'll be at Bluestockings in NYC on September 15th at 7pm.
There are several sound clips in this episode. You'll hear from Rick Roderick, a backwards Miley Cyrus, a documentary film about philosophy and the Matrix, and Max Headroom. And for some reason talking to Rudy Rucker about Transrealism put me in the mood to insert clips about Baudrillard and the Hyperreal, so you'll hear about that in this episode too.
Rudy Rucker on Transrealism:
<i>The Transrealist writes about immediate perceptions in a fantastic way. Any literature which is not about actual reality is weak and enervated. But the genre of straight realism is all burnt out. Who needs more straight novels? The tools of fantasy and SF offer a means to thicken and intensify realistic fiction. By using fantastic devices it is actually possible to manipulate subtext. The familiar tools of SF — time travel, antigravity, alternate worlds, telepathy, etc. — are in fact symbolic of archetypal modes of perception. Time travel is memory, flight is enlightenment, alternate worlds symbolize the great variety of individual world-views, and telepathy stands for the ability to communicate fully. This is the “Trans” aspect. The “realism” aspect has to do with the fact that a valid work of art should deal with the world the way it actually is. Transrealism tries to treat not only immediate reality, but also the higher reality in which life is embedded. </i>http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-08-29T11_31_42-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-08-29T11_31_42-07_00Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:31:42 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Laincyberpunk,rucker,transrealism,literature,fantasy,realism,art,aesthetics2874no73The guest this week is the cyberpunk author, mathematician, and transrealist Rudy Rucker, and we discuss his upcoming book The Big Aha.
My novel Billy Moon came out on Tuesday, August 27th, and I'm going to fly to Decatur, GA this weekend. I aim to record the reading in Decatur and possibly include it in next week's podcast. I will also soon be traveling to San Francisco, Chicago, and NYC in order to promote the novel and this podcast on the Think the Impossible tour. I look forward to meeting people who have been listening to the podcast. I'll be at Borderlands in San Francisco on September 7th at 3pm, I'll be at the Book Cellar on September 11th at 7pm, and I'll be at Bluestockings in NYC on September 15th at 7pm.
There are several sound clips in this episode. You'll hear from Rick Roderick, a backwards Miley Cyrus, a documentary film about philosophy and the Matrix, and Max Headroom. And for some reason talking to Rudy Rucker about Transrealism put me in the mood to insert clips about Baudrillard and the Hyperreal, so you'll hear about that in this episode too.
Rudy Rucker on Transrealism:
The Transrealist writes about immediate perceptions in a fantastic way. Any literature which is not about actual reality is weak and enervated. But the genre of straight realism is all burnt out. Who needs more straight novels? The tools of fantasy and SF offer a means to thicken and intensify realistic fiction. By using fantastic devices it is actually possible to manipulate subtext. The familiar tools of SF — time travel, antigravity, alternate worlds, telepathy, etc. — are in fact symbolic of archetypal modes of perception. Time travel is memory, flight is enlightenment, alternate worlds symbolize the great variety of individual world-views, and telepathy stands for the ability to communicate fully. This is the “Trans” aspect. The “realism” aspect has to do with the fact that a valid work of art should deal with the world the way it actually is. Transrealism tries to treat not only immediate reality, but also the higher reality in which life is embedded. The guest this week is the cyberpunk author, mathematician, and transrealist Rudy Rucker, and we ...Diet Soap Podcast #191: The Spectacle of Disintegration <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8649873.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is an author and a professor of Communications at the New School, <a href="http://www.newschool.edu/lang/faculty.aspx?id=1718">McKenzie Wark</a>. Wark's latest book The <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Spectacle-Disintegration-Situationist-Twentieth/dp/1844679578">Spectacle of Disintegration</a> is the subject for today's podcast and I was glad for the chance to discuss some of my favorite avant garde radicals, namely the Situationist International.
At one point in the discussion Wark points out that he finds the idea of an Orthodox interpretation of Marx to be an antiquated and highly suspect idea, and I largely agree with him. However, I would point out that if there is such a thing as an Orthodox interpretation of Marx today it is a Marx without Marx, and that the most dogmatic forms of anti-capitalism today are precisely those without a theory of what Capitalism is. What that means is that calls for Orthodoxy or a return to Marx are, paradoxically, a way of breaking with today's dogmas and orthodoxies.
It's Wednesday, August 21st, 2013 and I'm Douglas Lain the host of the podcast.
Thanks again to everyone who donated to the Think the Impossible book and podcast tour through Kickstarter. My novel Billy Moon will be coming out from Tor Books is six days, on August 27th, and I'll be traveling to San Francisco, Chicago, and NYC in order to promote the novel and this podcast. If you're hearing this now and you live in NYC, Chicago, or San Francisco I do hope you'll turn up to these events. I'll be at Bluestockings in NYC on September 15th at 7pm, and you'll get a chance to meet McKenzie Wark at that event and to participate in a follow up conversation to the one you're about to hear.
There are several sound clips in this episode. You'll hear many clips from the American situationist film <a href="http://archive.org/details/call_it_sleep_situ">Call it Sleep</a>, as well as clips of TJ Clark, Andrew Kliman, and Woody Allen. Pierre Schaeffer's avant garde <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2o9VyuJSD4">Symphony Apostrophe</a> comes near the end of the episode. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-08-21T13_50_06-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-08-21T13_50_06-07_00Wed, 21 Aug 2013 20:50:06 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainwark,situationist,si,marxism,surrealism,avant,garde,ideology3159no74The guest this week is an author and a professor of Communications at the New School, McKenzie Wark. Wark's latest book The Spectacle of Disintegration is the subject for today's podcast and I was glad for the chance to discuss some of my favorite avant garde radicals, namely the Situationist International.
At one point in the discussion Wark points out that he finds the idea of an Orthodox interpretation of Marx to be an antiquated and highly suspect idea, and I largely agree with him. However, I would point out that if there is such a thing as an Orthodox interpretation of Marx today it is a Marx without Marx, and that the most dogmatic forms of anti-capitalism today are precisely those without a theory of what Capitalism is. What that means is that calls for Orthodoxy or a return to Marx are, paradoxically, a way of breaking with today's dogmas and orthodoxies.
It's Wednesday, August 21st, 2013 and I'm Douglas Lain the host of the podcast.
Thanks again to everyone who donated to the Think the Impossible book and podcast tour through Kickstarter. My novel Billy Moon will be coming out from Tor Books is six days, on August 27th, and I'll be traveling to San Francisco, Chicago, and NYC in order to promote the novel and this podcast. If you're hearing this now and you live in NYC, Chicago, or San Francisco I do hope you'll turn up to these events. I'll be at Bluestockings in NYC on September 15th at 7pm, and you'll get a chance to meet McKenzie Wark at that event and to participate in a follow up conversation to the one you're about to hear.
There are several sound clips in this episode. You'll hear many clips from the American situationist film Call it Sleep, as well as clips of TJ Clark, Andrew Kliman, and Woody Allen. Pierre Schaeffer's avant garde Symphony Apostrophe comes near the end of the episode. The guest this week is an author and a professor of Communications at the New School, McKenzie Wa...Pop the Left #8: Dual Power<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8628431.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />C Derick Varn and I discuss the anarchist/communist strategy of dual power and how the term has come to mean too many things. Starting with a wikipedia article that lists everything from communes to workers coops as examples of "dual power" Varn walks us through the history of Lenin's use of the strategy. Stopping briefly to imagine the end of Capitalism we end up taking on the list of "dual power" institutions head on.
The notion of dual power is usually associated with prefigurative politics which accounts for a lot of our criticism and debate.
From the Mutualist Alliance Blog:
<i>The mutualist praxis is not based on insurrection (though it does not strictly object to it, it views it as frequently ineffectual), nor open revolution (as the enemies of mutualist society far exceed us in power and capacity at this point in time). Instead, it is based on what Proudhon termed the dissolution of the State in the social mechanism, or what Lenin called “dual power” and Konkin called “counter-economics”. The essential principle of mutualist organization is to build a better, freer society, right here and now, which can serve as an alternative to the current system.</i>http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-08-15T13_03_31-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-08-15T13_03_31-07_00Thu, 15 Aug 2013 20:03:31 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmutualism,anarchism,coop,prefigurative,lenin,dual,power,marxism3539no75C Derick Varn and I discuss the anarchist/communist strategy of dual power and how the term has come to mean too many things. Starting with a wikipedia article that lists everything from communes to workers coops as examples of "dual power" Varn walks us through the history of Lenin's use of the strategy. Stopping briefly to imagine the end of Capitalism we end up taking on the list of "dual power" institutions head on.
The notion of dual power is usually associated with prefigurative politics which accounts for a lot of our criticism and debate.
From the Mutualist Alliance Blog:
The mutualist praxis is not based on insurrection (though it does not strictly object to it, it views it as frequently ineffectual), nor open revolution (as the enemies of mutualist society far exceed us in power and capacity at this point in time). Instead, it is based on what Proudhon termed the dissolution of the State in the social mechanism, or what Lenin called “dual power” and Konkin called “counter-economics”. The essential principle of mutualist organization is to build a better, freer society, right here and now, which can serve as an alternative to the current system.C Derick Varn and I discuss the anarchist/communist strategy of dual power and how the term has c...Diet Soap Podcast #190: How to Have a Self Thinking Idea<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8595851.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the Marxist economist and radical thinker Andrew Kliman. Kliman is the author of the terrific books <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Marxs-Capital-Inconsistency-Dunayevskaya/dp/0739118528">Reclaiming Marx's Capital</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Capitalist-Production-Underlying-Recession/dp/0745332390/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375907026&sr=1-2">the Failure of Capitalist Production</a>, but this week we discuss a paper written by the members of the Marxist Humanist Initiative entitled "<a href="http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/philosophyorganization/the-self-thinking-idea-does-not-mean-you-thinking">The Self Thinking Idea Does Not Mean You Thinking</a>." What that title means is that radical thought cannot be a merely private act, but must be organized and must pursue its own ends, apart from other agendas held by either individuals or the institution that is founded as a means of organizing.
At one point in the discussion I ask Kliman if it isn't the case that our knowledge and ideas must always be partial and founded upon collective agreement, and I believe that at that point I sent the conversation off on the wrong track. Instead I ought to have asked, isn't it the case that our thoughts and partial understanding is always founded on already existing activity, and that this activity is already shot through with ideas, perhaps ideas that aren't consciously held but only acted out. But, I didn't ask that question and so we don't quite arrive at addressing that concern. Still, despite my mistake we get fairly close to addressing that question.
I want to reiterate my thanks to everyone who donated to the Think the Impossible book and podcast tour through Kickstarter. My novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Billy-Moon-Douglas-Lain/dp/0765321726">Billy Moon</a> will be coming out from Tor Books on August 27th, and I'll be traveling to San Francisco, Chicago, and NYC in order to promote the novel and this podcast. The point is that I'd love to meet people who have been listening to this podcast, and if you're hearing this now and you live in NYC, Chicago, or San Francisco I do hope you'll turn up to these events: That is, I'll be at Borderlands in San Francisco on September 7th at 3pm, I'll be at the Book Cellar on September 11th at 7pm, and I'll be at Bluestockings in NYC on September 15th at 7pm. You can also meet Andrew Kliman at that last event in NYC and hear a follow up conversation to the one you're about to hear today.
There are several sound clips in this episode. You'll hear the youtube stars Rick Roderick and Chad African talk about Althusser and Socrates. You'll also hear music from Bartok and Strauss, and in the final moment you'll hear an Occupy Wall Street drum circle and a few moments of a lecture by Andrew Kliman entitled "The Transitional Society is an Incoherent Notion." http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-08-07T13_31_19-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-08-07T13_31_19-07_00Wed, 07 Aug 2013 20:31:19 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,hegel,philosophy,critical,theory,ideology3484no76The guest this week is the Marxist economist and radical thinker Andrew Kliman. Kliman is the author of the terrific books Reclaiming Marx's Capital and the Failure of Capitalist Production, but this week we discuss a paper written by the members of the Marxist Humanist Initiative entitled "The Self Thinking Idea Does Not Mean You Thinking." What that title means is that radical thought cannot be a merely private act, but must be organized and must pursue its own ends, apart from other agendas held by either individuals or the institution that is founded as a means of organizing.
At one point in the discussion I ask Kliman if it isn't the case that our knowledge and ideas must always be partial and founded upon collective agreement, and I believe that at that point I sent the conversation off on the wrong track. Instead I ought to have asked, isn't it the case that our thoughts and partial understanding is always founded on already existing activity, and that this activity is already shot through with ideas, perhaps ideas that aren't consciously held but only acted out. But, I didn't ask that question and so we don't quite arrive at addressing that concern. Still, despite my mistake we get fairly close to addressing that question.
I want to reiterate my thanks to everyone who donated to the Think the Impossible book and podcast tour through Kickstarter. My novel Billy Moon will be coming out from Tor Books on August 27th, and I'll be traveling to San Francisco, Chicago, and NYC in order to promote the novel and this podcast. The point is that I'd love to meet people who have been listening to this podcast, and if you're hearing this now and you live in NYC, Chicago, or San Francisco I do hope you'll turn up to these events: That is, I'll be at Borderlands in San Francisco on September 7th at 3pm, I'll be at the Book Cellar on September 11th at 7pm, and I'll be at Bluestockings in NYC on September 15th at 7pm. You can also meet Andrew Kliman at that last event in NYC and hear a follow up conversation to the one you're about to hear today.
There are several sound clips in this episode. You'll hear the youtube stars Rick Roderick and Chad African talk about Althusser and Socrates. You'll also hear music from Bartok and Strauss, and in the final moment you'll hear an Occupy Wall Street drum circle and a few moments of a lecture by Andrew Kliman entitled "The Transitional Society is an Incoherent Notion." The guest this week is the Marxist economist and radical thinker Andrew Kliman. Kliman is the aut...Diet Soap Podcast #189: Chomsky vs. Žižek<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8570169.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is a university lecturer, a poet, and my co-host on Pop the Left. I tapped <a href="http://formerpeople.wordpress.com/">C Derick Varn</a> to come on so we could discuss the recent Chomsky/Zizek feud. For those of you who haven't been following the debate let me expose you to it:
<a href="http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/noam_chomsky_slams_zizek_and_lacan_empty_posturing.html">Noam Chomsky on Zizek</a>: <em>What you’re referring to is what’s called “theory.” And when I said I’m not interested in theory, what I meant is, I’m not interested in posturing–using fancy terms like polysyllables and pretending you have a theory when you have no theory whatsoever. So there’s no theory in any of this stuff, not in the sense of theory that anyone is familiar with in the sciences or any other serious field. Try to find in all of the work you mentioned some principles from which you can deduce conclusions, empirically testable propositions where it all goes beyond the level of something you can explain in five minutes to a twelve-year-old. See if you can find that when the fancy words are decoded. I can’t. So I’m not interested in that kind of posturing. Žižek is an extreme example of it. I don’t see anything to what he’s saying. Jacques Lacan I actually knew. I kind of liked him. We had meetings every once in awhile. But quite frankly I thought he was a total charlatan. He was just posturing for the television cameras in the way many Paris intellectuals do. Why this is influential, I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t see anything there that should be influential.</em>
<a href="http://www.openculture.com/2013/07/slavoj-zizek-responds-to-noam-chomsky.html">Slavoj Zizek on Chomsky</a>: <em>What is that about, again, the academy and Chomsky and so on? Well with all deep respect that I do have for Chomsky, my first point is that Chomsky, who always emphasizes how one has to be empirical, accurate, not just some crazy Lacanian speculations and so on… well I don’t think I know a guy who was so often empirically wrong in his descriptions in his whatever! Let’s look… I remember when he defended this demonstration of Khmer Rouge. And he wrote a couple of texts claiming: No, this is Western propaganda. Khmer Rouge are not as horrible as that.” And when later he was compelled to admit that Khmer Rouge were not the nicest guys in the Universe and so on, his defense was quite shocking for me. It was that “No, with the data that we had at that point, I was right. At that point we didn’t yet know enough, so… you know.” But I totally reject this line of reasoning.
For example, concerning Stalinism. The point is not that you have to know, you have photo evidence of gulag or whatever. My God you just have to listen to the public discourse of Stalinism, of Khmer Rouge, to get it that something terrifyingly pathological is going on there. For example, Khmer Rouge: Even if we have no data about their prisons and so on, isn’t it in a perverse way almost fascinating to have a regime which in the first two years (’75 to ’77) behaved towards itself, treated itself, as illegal? You know the regime was nameless. It was called “Angka,” an organization — not communist party of Cambodia — an organization. Leaders were nameless. If you ask “Who is my leader?” your head was chopped off immediately and so on.</em>
You can find follow-ups from both of these thinkers <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2013/07/slavoj-zizek-publishes-a-very-clearly-written-essay-length-response-to-chomskys-brutal-criticisms.html">here</a>.
I want to reiterate my thanks to everyone who donated to the Think the Impossible book and podcast tour through Kickstarter. I'd love to meet people who have been listening to this podcast, and if you're hearing this now and you live in NYC, Chicago, or San Francisco I do hope you'll turn up to these events.
There are several sound clips in this episode. You'll mostly hear from Chomsky and Zizek, but there is also a clip from the National Geographic special Brain Games Apollo Robbins and perhaps a few other voices as well. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-07-31T14_38_29-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-07-31T14_38_29-07_00Wed, 31 Jul 2013 21:38:29 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainanarchism,marxism,chomsky,zizek,feud,continental,analytic3457no77The guest this week is a university lecturer, a poet, and my co-host on Pop the Left. I tapped C Derick Varn to come on so we could discuss the recent Chomsky/Zizek feud. For those of you who haven't been following the debate let me expose you to it:
Noam Chomsky on Zizek: What you’re referring to is what’s called “theory.” And when I said I’m not interested in theory, what I meant is, I’m not interested in posturing–using fancy terms like polysyllables and pretending you have a theory when you have no theory whatsoever. So there’s no theory in any of this stuff, not in the sense of theory that anyone is familiar with in the sciences or any other serious field. Try to find in all of the work you mentioned some principles from which you can deduce conclusions, empirically testable propositions where it all goes beyond the level of something you can explain in five minutes to a twelve-year-old. See if you can find that when the fancy words are decoded. I can’t. So I’m not interested in that kind of posturing. Žižek is an extreme example of it. I don’t see anything to what he’s saying. Jacques Lacan I actually knew. I kind of liked him. We had meetings every once in awhile. But quite frankly I thought he was a total charlatan. He was just posturing for the television cameras in the way many Paris intellectuals do. Why this is influential, I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t see anything there that should be influential.
Slavoj Zizek on Chomsky: What is that about, again, the academy and Chomsky and so on? Well with all deep respect that I do have for Chomsky, my first point is that Chomsky, who always emphasizes how one has to be empirical, accurate, not just some crazy Lacanian speculations and so on… well I don’t think I know a guy who was so often empirically wrong in his descriptions in his whatever! Let’s look… I remember when he defended this demonstration of Khmer Rouge. And he wrote a couple of texts claiming: No, this is Western propaganda. Khmer Rouge are not as horrible as that.” And when later he was compelled to admit that Khmer Rouge were not the nicest guys in the Universe and so on, his defense was quite shocking for me. It was that “No, with the data that we had at that point, I was right. At that point we didn’t yet know enough, so… you know.” But I totally reject this line of reasoning.
For example, concerning Stalinism. The point is not that you have to know, you have photo evidence of gulag or whatever. My God you just have to listen to the public discourse of Stalinism, of Khmer Rouge, to get it that something terrifyingly pathological is going on there. For example, Khmer Rouge: Even if we have no data about their prisons and so on, isn’t it in a perverse way almost fascinating to have a regime which in the first two years (’75 to ’77) behaved towards itself, treated itself, as illegal? You know the regime was nameless. It was called “Angka,” an organization — not communist party of Cambodia — an organization. Leaders were nameless. If you ask “Who is my leader?” your head was chopped off immediately and so on.
You can find follow-ups from both of these thinkers here.
I want to reiterate my thanks to everyone who donated to the Think the Impossible book and podcast tour through Kickstarter. I'd love to meet people who have been listening to this podcast, and if you're hearing this now and you live in NYC, Chicago, or San Francisco I do hope you'll turn up to these events.
There are several sound clips in this episode. You'll mostly hear from Chomsky and Zizek, but there is also a clip from the National Geographic special Brain Games Apollo Robbins and perhaps a few other voices as well. The guest this week is a university lecturer, a poet, and my co-host on Pop the Left. I tapped C ...Diet Soap Podcast #188: Nietzsche's Affirmation and Hegel's Contradiction<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8542213.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is <a href="http://hilariousbookbinder.blogspot.com/">Daniel Coffeen</a> and what starts off as a discussion of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals turns into a debate about the relative merits of Nietzsche's philosophy founded on immanence, affirmation, and positive will as opposed to Hegel's contradictory negativity. I'm unsure as to how to describe the difference between my perspective and Coffeen's except by analogy. Think of <a href="http://hilariousbookbinder.blogspot.com/">Coffeen's</a> Nietzsche as John Cage, a composer who was more interested in discreet sounds than in relationships, whereas my version of Hegel would be Johann Sebastian Bach with his utterly rational fugues that can only be understood as melody set in oppositions like this: subject, countersubject, and episode.
Consider these quotes: John Cage once said, “The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accordance with nature, in her manner of operation.”
While Johan Sebastian Bach is reported to have said, "The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."
I want to reiterate my thanks to everyone who donated to the Think the Impossible book and podcast tour through Kickstarter. Very soon I'll be purchasing the Amtrak tickets to San Francisco, Chicago, and NYC, and posting my travel schedule online. I have three aims on this tour: First, to put together interesting events in each city and spark discussion on the themes I explore on Diet Soap and in my fiction. Second, to promote the podcast and my novel Billy Moon as best I can. Third, to take in the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.
There are several sound clips in this episode and you'll hear the voices of Rick Roderick and Slavoj Zizek as set to Wagner, John Cage, Sebastian Back, and music from the video game Portal. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-07-24T13_16_25-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-07-24T13_16_25-07_00Wed, 24 Jul 2013 20:16:25 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainnietzsche,hegel,philosophy,deleuze,zizek2812no78The guest this week is Daniel Coffeen and what starts off as a discussion of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals turns into a debate about the relative merits of Nietzsche's philosophy founded on immanence, affirmation, and positive will as opposed to Hegel's contradictory negativity. I'm unsure as to how to describe the difference between my perspective and Coffeen's except by analogy. Think of Coffeen's Nietzsche as John Cage, a composer who was more interested in discreet sounds than in relationships, whereas my version of Hegel would be Johann Sebastian Bach with his utterly rational fugues that can only be understood as melody set in oppositions like this: subject, countersubject, and episode.
Consider these quotes: John Cage once said, “The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accordance with nature, in her manner of operation.”
While Johan Sebastian Bach is reported to have said, "The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."
I want to reiterate my thanks to everyone who donated to the Think the Impossible book and podcast tour through Kickstarter. Very soon I'll be purchasing the Amtrak tickets to San Francisco, Chicago, and NYC, and posting my travel schedule online. I have three aims on this tour: First, to put together interesting events in each city and spark discussion on the themes I explore on Diet Soap and in my fiction. Second, to promote the podcast and my novel Billy Moon as best I can. Third, to take in the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.
There are several sound clips in this episode and you'll hear the voices of Rick Roderick and Slavoj Zizek as set to Wagner, John Cage, Sebastian Back, and music from the video game Portal. The guest this week is Daniel Coffeen and what starts off as a discussion of Nietzsche's Genealog...Diet Soap Podcast #186: The Snowden Litmus Test <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8485432.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the columnist Margaret Kimberley. <a href="http://blackagendareport.com/blog/172">Kimberley's Freedom Rider</a> column appears on the Black Agenda Report and this week we discuss a column she wrote entitled "<a href="http://blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-snowden-litmus-test">The Snowden Litmus Test</a>."
It's Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 and I'm Douglas Lain the host of the podcast.
The <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1354151079/think-the-impossible-tour">Kickstarter project</a> to fund a book and podcast tour in September has five days remaining and is 81% funded. There are currently 69 backers and this week I want to thank Jennifer L, Aquila H, Kurt O, Cathy K, James G, Anna W, Christopher V, Henry W, Mark D, Brandy H, Matt L, Tony Y, Tom G, and Richard B.
If you like the Diet Soap Podcast pledging to the Think the Impossible tour is a great way to support it.
In related news there is a <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1354151079/think-the-impossible-tour/posts/533828">serialized audio version</a> of my upcoming novel Billy Moon. It's a freebie that I'm giving away through the Kickstarter campaign, and to I'll post a link to the chapter five in this week's show notes.
Here's an excerpt from Kimberley's column:
<a href="http://blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-snowden-litmus-test">Edward Snowden has been called a traitor, a narcissist, a loser and a danger to national security. Reporters have questioned whether he was friendly enough to his neighbors or why he made a good salary despite having just a GED. He has even been criticized for leaving the military after he broke his legs. His whereabouts are unknown because the federal government is preparing to file charges against him.
Such extravagant and bizarre levels of vitriol can mean only one thing. When politicians and rich pundits all join together to deliver a very public beat down, the victim of the beating is probably someone who did the people a great service.</a>http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-07-10T13_07_04-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-07-10T13_07_04-07_00Wed, 10 Jul 2013 20:07:04 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainedward,snowden,prism,civil,liberties,margaret,kimberley,control,society,police,state2395no79The guest this week is the columnist Margaret Kimberley. Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears on the Black Agenda Report and this week we discuss a column she wrote entitled "The Snowden Litmus Test."
It's Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 and I'm Douglas Lain the host of the podcast.
The Kickstarter project to fund a book and podcast tour in September has five days remaining and is 81% funded. There are currently 69 backers and this week I want to thank Jennifer L, Aquila H, Kurt O, Cathy K, James G, Anna W, Christopher V, Henry W, Mark D, Brandy H, Matt L, Tony Y, Tom G, and Richard B.
If you like the Diet Soap Podcast pledging to the Think the Impossible tour is a great way to support it.
In related news there is a serialized audio version of my upcoming novel Billy Moon. It's a freebie that I'm giving away through the Kickstarter campaign, and to I'll post a link to the chapter five in this week's show notes.
Here's an excerpt from Kimberley's column:
Edward Snowden has been called a traitor, a narcissist, a loser and a danger to national security. Reporters have questioned whether he was friendly enough to his neighbors or why he made a good salary despite having just a GED. He has even been criticized for leaving the military after he broke his legs. His whereabouts are unknown because the federal government is preparing to file charges against him.
Such extravagant and bizarre levels of vitriol can mean only one thing. When politicians and rich pundits all join together to deliver a very public beat down, the victim of the beating is probably someone who did the people a great service.The guest this week is the columnist Margaret Kimberley. Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears...Pop the Left #7: Breaking Marx<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8466120.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />This month's Pop the Left features a conversation about C Derick Varn's feelings and thoughts on and against what he calls political Marxism. The conversation wanders in a process that is a bit like free association, and then again nothing like it.
You'll hear clips from my daughter's favorite author <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vufba_ZcoR0">John Green on the question of the Renaissance</a>, clips from Philip K Dick and Big Time TV on the Black Iron Prison, and a discussion of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS8LC-6maxA">the repetition compulsion and psychoanalysis</a>.
I want to thank listeners who have supported my Kickstarter campaign for the <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1354151079/think-the-impossible-tour">Think the Impossible tour</a>. As most of you know, I'm Douglas Lain and I'm the co-host of Pop the Left and the host of a podcast called Diet Soap. I'm also a novelist and my book for MacMillan called Billy Moon tells the story of Christopher Robin Milne's entirely fictional involvement with the student/worker strikes of May 1968. When I go on the Think the Impossible Tour I will take both my novel and my podcast to San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.
In the last week there were seven backers and I want to thank: Chris L, Shauna R, Tom W, Charlotte K, Claire M, Damian K, and the cyberpunk author Rudy Rucker.
If you like Pop the Left backing <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Billy-Moon-Douglas-Lain/dp/0765321726">Think the Impossible</a> is a great way to show it.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-07-05T01_07_37-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-07-05T01_07_37-07_00Fri, 05 Jul 2013 08:07:37 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,surrealism,philosophy,theory3402no80This month's Pop the Left features a conversation about C Derick Varn's feelings and thoughts on and against what he calls political Marxism. The conversation wanders in a process that is a bit like free association, and then again nothing like it.
You'll hear clips from my daughter's favorite author John Green on the question of the Renaissance, clips from Philip K Dick and Big Time TV on the Black Iron Prison, and a discussion of the repetition compulsion and psychoanalysis.
I want to thank listeners who have supported my Kickstarter campaign for the Think the Impossible tour. As most of you know, I'm Douglas Lain and I'm the co-host of Pop the Left and the host of a podcast called Diet Soap. I'm also a novelist and my book for MacMillan called Billy Moon tells the story of Christopher Robin Milne's entirely fictional involvement with the student/worker strikes of May 1968. When I go on the Think the Impossible Tour I will take both my novel and my podcast to San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.
In the last week there were seven backers and I want to thank: Chris L, Shauna R, Tom W, Charlotte K, Claire M, Damian K, and the cyberpunk author Rudy Rucker.
If you like Pop the Left backing Think the Impossible is a great way to show it.
This month's Pop the Left features a conversation about C Derick Varn's feelings and thoughts on ...Diet Soap Podcast #185: Nietzsche, Hegel, and the Impossible<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8433770.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is Andy Marshall. Andy Marshall is a self described "philosophy kid" and a frequent contributor to Diet Soap. He is my co-host on the biweekly Diet Soap conversations on Talkshoe, the Diet Soap archivist (he's been the one putting old episodes back onto the Podomatic page), and this is part two of a longer conversation wherein we discuss Robert Anton Wilson, Nietzsche, and, of course, Hegel. At the end of this episode you'll hear Andy reading from a philosophical email essay he wrote for this episode, and I'll link to <a href="http://douglaslain.net/andrew-marshall-philosophy-impossible/">the entirety of that essay</a> in the show notes.
It's Wednesday, June 26th, 2013 and I'm Douglas Lain the host of the podcast.
You may have noticed that my <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1354151079/think-the-impossible-tour/ ">Kickstarter project</a> to fund a book and podcast tour in September is underway. The project is two weeks in, and halfway to the goal. At present there are 48 backers of the project and I want to thank Daniel S, Joshua W, Brad P, Joanne M, Sarah S, Nikki G, Jason S, Phil, Pedar L, and Rob M. I want to take the time to especially thank Brad B because not only did Brad pledge to the tour, he scheduled the space for the Think the Impossible event in Chicago. I'm pleased to say that we'll be thinking impossibly in the <a href="http://www.bookcellarinc.com/">Book Cellar</a> with the candlestick…wait, on that it, the Think the Impossible will be held to the Book Cellar in Chicago on September 11th.
If you like Diet Soap pledging to the Think the Impossible tour is a great way to support it.
In related news there is a serialized audio version of my upcoming novel Billy Moon. It's a freebie that I'm giving away through the Kickstarter campaign, and to I'll <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1354151079/think-the-impossible-tour/posts/521280">post a link to the chapter three</a> in this week's show notes.
<a href="http://douglaslain.net/?attachment_id=1689" rel="attachment wp-att-1689"><img src="http://douglaslain.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/dietsoap185-300x270.jpg" alt="dietsoap185" width="300" height="270" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1689" /></a>http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-06-26T11_05_34-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-06-26T11_05_34-07_00Wed, 26 Jun 2013 18:05:34 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,collage,roderick,raw,reality,nietzsche,hegel,impossible3884no81The guest this week is Andy Marshall. Andy Marshall is a self described "philosophy kid" and a frequent contributor to Diet Soap. He is my co-host on the biweekly Diet Soap conversations on Talkshoe, the Diet Soap archivist (he's been the one putting old episodes back onto the Podomatic page), and this is part two of a longer conversation wherein we discuss Robert Anton Wilson, Nietzsche, and, of course, Hegel. At the end of this episode you'll hear Andy reading from a philosophical email essay he wrote for this episode, and I'll link to the entirety of that essay in the show notes.
It's Wednesday, June 26th, 2013 and I'm Douglas Lain the host of the podcast.
You may have noticed that my Kickstarter project to fund a book and podcast tour in September is underway. The project is two weeks in, and halfway to the goal. At present there are 48 backers of the project and I want to thank Daniel S, Joshua W, Brad P, Joanne M, Sarah S, Nikki G, Jason S, Phil, Pedar L, and Rob M. I want to take the time to especially thank Brad B because not only did Brad pledge to the tour, he scheduled the space for the Think the Impossible event in Chicago. I'm pleased to say that we'll be thinking impossibly in the Book Cellar with the candlestick…wait, on that it, the Think the Impossible will be held to the Book Cellar in Chicago on September 11th.
If you like Diet Soap pledging to the Think the Impossible tour is a great way to support it.
In related news there is a serialized audio version of my upcoming novel Billy Moon. It's a freebie that I'm giving away through the Kickstarter campaign, and to I'll post a link to the chapter three in this week's show notes.
The guest this week is Andy Marshall. Andy Marshall is a self described "philosophy kid" and a fr...Diet Soap Podcast #184: Think the Impossible<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8407108.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is Andy Marshall. Andy Marshall is a self described "philosophy kid" and a frequent contributor to Diet Soap. He is my co-host on the biweekly <a href="http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=117700&cmd=tc">Diet Soap conversations on Talkshoe</a>, the Diet Soap archivist (he's been the one putting old episodes back onto the Podomatic page), and a moderating influence on the show and this week's episode is an excerpt from a much longer conversation. You'll hear another excerpt, this one on the subject of Nietzsche, next week, but this week we focus in on the idea of the impossible and touch briefly upon Deleuze.
You may have noticed that my <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1354151079/think-the-impossible-tour">Kickstarter project</a> to fund a book and podcast tour in September is underway. The project is two weeks in, and halfway to the goal. At present there are 38 backers of the Think the Impossible tour. Thanks to Paul H, Yoshio K, Dan W, Cay, Eilidh B, Michael T, Jay G, Zackery M, Josh B, Francisco F, Scott, Davis D, Terry T, Edward, Charles H, Andrew F, Justin R, David B, and Conrad H.
If you like Diet Soap pledging to the Think the Impossible tour is a great way to support it.
In related news I've started a serialized audio version of my upcoming novel Billy Moon. It's a freebie that I'm giving away through the Kickstarter campaign, and to I'll post <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1354151079/think-the-impossible-tour/posts/515000">a link to the second chapter</a> in this week's show notes. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-06-20T00_01_55-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-06-20T00_01_55-07_00Thu, 20 Jun 2013 07:01:55 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lain1954no82The guest this week is Andy Marshall. Andy Marshall is a self described "philosophy kid" and a frequent contributor to Diet Soap. He is my co-host on the biweekly Diet Soap conversations on Talkshoe, the Diet Soap archivist (he's been the one putting old episodes back onto the Podomatic page), and a moderating influence on the show and this week's episode is an excerpt from a much longer conversation. You'll hear another excerpt, this one on the subject of Nietzsche, next week, but this week we focus in on the idea of the impossible and touch briefly upon Deleuze.
You may have noticed that my Kickstarter project to fund a book and podcast tour in September is underway. The project is two weeks in, and halfway to the goal. At present there are 38 backers of the Think the Impossible tour. Thanks to Paul H, Yoshio K, Dan W, Cay, Eilidh B, Michael T, Jay G, Zackery M, Josh B, Francisco F, Scott, Davis D, Terry T, Edward, Charles H, Andrew F, Justin R, David B, and Conrad H.
If you like Diet Soap pledging to the Think the Impossible tour is a great way to support it.
In related news I've started a serialized audio version of my upcoming novel Billy Moon. It's a freebie that I'm giving away through the Kickstarter campaign, and to I'll post a link to the second chapter in this week's show notes. The guest this week is Andy Marshall. Andy Marshall is a self described "philosophy kid" and a fr...Diet Soap #182: What Art is For<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8319977.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The Artist <a href="http://www.lurkylurky.com/bio.html">Michael Reinsch</a> is the guest this week as we discuss contemporary art, concepts, meaning, nihilism, and what it's like to kiss a strange man for money. Michael Reinsch's installation at the <a href="http://placepdx.tumblr.com/">Place Gallery</a> successfully blurred the boundary between art and life, and I was glad to get to talk to him about that distinction and the aim of his work.
I'd like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, and Ted F. And let people listening know you can find me on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/douglain">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/douglain">Twitter</a>, and at <a href="http://douglaslain.com">douglaslain.com</a>. Also, I've started up writing for Thought Catalog again and I'll provide links to two essays about the philosophy of Arrested Development in this week's show notes. (<a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/dont-be-fooled-arrested-development-is-freudian/">Link 1</a>. <a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/the-top-three-ways-to-enjoy-the-new-arrested-development/">Link 2</a>)
If you're a fan of Diet Soap why not leave a review on iTunes?
There are many sound clips in this episode. There are clips of Marcel Duchamp and Robert Hughes, a comedy routine from <a href="http://www.coyleandsharpe.com/">Coyle and Sharpe</a>, Laurie Anderson's Bright Red, and Michael Reinsch himself set in C.
Another conversation with Jason Horsley regarding his book <em>Prisoner of Infinity</em> is online this week. Check out the links to the right <a href="http://auticulture.com/home/jason-horsley/">on his blog</a>.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-05-29T11_10_24-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-05-29T11_10_24-07_00Wed, 29 May 2013 18:10:24 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainart,modernism,postmodernism,duchamp,philosophy2174no83The Artist Michael Reinsch is the guest this week as we discuss contemporary art, concepts, meaning, nihilism, and what it's like to kiss a strange man for money. Michael Reinsch's installation at the Place Gallery successfully blurred the boundary between art and life, and I was glad to get to talk to him about that distinction and the aim of his work.
I'd like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, and Ted F. And let people listening know you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and at douglaslain.com. Also, I've started up writing for Thought Catalog again and I'll provide links to two essays about the philosophy of Arrested Development in this week's show notes. (Link 1. Link 2)
If you're a fan of Diet Soap why not leave a review on iTunes?
There are many sound clips in this episode. There are clips of Marcel Duchamp and Robert Hughes, a comedy routine from Coyle and Sharpe, Laurie Anderson's Bright Red, and Michael Reinsch himself set in C.
Another conversation with Jason Horsley regarding his book Prisoner of Infinity is online this week. Check out the links to the right on his blog.
The Artist Michael Reinsch is the guest this week as we discuss contemporary art, concepts, meani...Diet Soap Podcast #181: The Low Art of Comedy<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8289844.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /><a href="http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/">Dennis Perrin</a> is the guest this week and we discuss the low art of comedy. Dennis is the author of Mister Mike the Man Who Made Comedy Dangerous, a stand-up comic himself, and a regular on the Diet Soap podcast.
I'd like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, and Ted F. Also, if you're a fan of the Diet Soap Podcast why not leave a review on iTunes? If you'd like to donate you can find the buttons at douglaslain.com and at dietsoap.podomatic.com but keep in mind that my Kickstarter campaign for the Diet Soap Tour "Think the Impossible" is coming soon.
There are many sound clips in this episode. There are clips of Michael O'Donoghue, Jonathan Winters, George Carlin, Robin Williams, and a bit of stand-up from Mr. Perrin himself.
Here's a clip from an essay Perrin recently penned for the online comedy magazine Splitsider:
<i>I can't think of an American comedian more revered and respected than Jonathan Winters. (There's Jack Benny, for those who remember him.) Winters created a world where you were welcome, but you had to keep pace. His rapid-fire mind took hairpin turns. The inattentive might be left in his dust.
Winters was one of the more offbeat performers in mainstream comedy. He was as polished as Hope. As graceful as Gleason. As biting as Rickles. Yet Winters pushed it further. Breathed different oxygen. No matter how far out he went, Winters was accepted and cherished in the most conservative venues.</i>. <a href="http://splitsider.com/2013/04/there-will-never-be-another-jonathan-winters/">Read More at Splitsider</a>.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-05-22T11_17_25-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-05-22T11_17_25-07_00Wed, 22 May 2013 18:17:25 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainwinters,comedy,stand-up,carlin,o'donoghue,clowns2764no84Dennis Perrin is the guest this week and we discuss the low art of comedy. Dennis is the author of Mister Mike the Man Who Made Comedy Dangerous, a stand-up comic himself, and a regular on the Diet Soap podcast.
I'd like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, and Ted F. Also, if you're a fan of the Diet Soap Podcast why not leave a review on iTunes? If you'd like to donate you can find the buttons at douglaslain.com and at dietsoap.podomatic.com but keep in mind that my Kickstarter campaign for the Diet Soap Tour "Think the Impossible" is coming soon.
There are many sound clips in this episode. There are clips of Michael O'Donoghue, Jonathan Winters, George Carlin, Robin Williams, and a bit of stand-up from Mr. Perrin himself.
Here's a clip from an essay Perrin recently penned for the online comedy magazine Splitsider:
I can't think of an American comedian more revered and respected than Jonathan Winters. (There's Jack Benny, for those who remember him.) Winters created a world where you were welcome, but you had to keep pace. His rapid-fire mind took hairpin turns. The inattentive might be left in his dust.
Winters was one of the more offbeat performers in mainstream comedy. He was as polished as Hope. As graceful as Gleason. As biting as Rickles. Yet Winters pushed it further. Breathed different oxygen. No matter how far out he went, Winters was accepted and cherished in the most conservative venues.. Read More at Splitsider.
Dennis Perrin is the guest this week and we discuss the low art of comedy. Dennis is the author ...Diet Soap Podcast #180: Hegel, Self-Conceit and Michael Bluth<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8258546.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />This week instead of an expert interview you'll hear my son Benjamin and I discuss the television show Arrested Development, Hipsters, and Hegel. We cover the section on the <a href="http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phc1bb.htm">Law of the Heart in Hegel's Phenomen</a><a href="http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phc1bb.htm">ology of Spirit </a>and try to make sense of gibberish like this:
<em>"This ordinance is the sphere of perversion. For in that this ordinance is the law of all hearts, in that all individuals are immediately this universal, it is a reality which is only that of self-existing individuality, i.e. of the heart. When consciousness therefore sets up the law of its heart, it finds itself resisted by others because it conflicts with the equally individual laws of their heart; and the latter in opposing it are doing nothing else but setting up in their turn and making valid their own law."</em>
You can also find me discussing similar subject over on Jason Horsley's new website<a href="http://crucialfictions.com/wp-content/uploads/audios/The-Ardures-of-Atheism.mp3"> Crucial Fictions</a>.
I'd like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly again. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, Tracy V, and Ted F. If you'd like to donate you can find the buttons at douglaslain.com and at dietsoap.podomatic.com but you might consider that my Kickstarter campaign for the Diet Soap Tour "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwPTSkLbt0c">Think the Impossible</a>" is coming soon. There are many sound clips in this episode. There are clips of Arrested Development, Norman Mailer, Dairy Queen, Europe, and the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAg5KjnAhuU">youtube star Kazookeylele</a>.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-05-15T12_37_59-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-05-15T12_37_59-07_00Wed, 15 May 2013 19:37:59 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainarrested,development,michael,bluth,hegel,law,of,heart,hipsters,phenomenology,spirt1455no85This week instead of an expert interview you'll hear my son Benjamin and I discuss the television show Arrested Development, Hipsters, and Hegel. We cover the section on the Law of the Heart in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and try to make sense of gibberish like this:
"This ordinance is the sphere of perversion. For in that this ordinance is the law of all hearts, in that all individuals are immediately this universal, it is a reality which is only that of self-existing individuality, i.e. of the heart. When consciousness therefore sets up the law of its heart, it finds itself resisted by others because it conflicts with the equally individual laws of their heart; and the latter in opposing it are doing nothing else but setting up in their turn and making valid their own law."
You can also find me discussing similar subject over on Jason Horsley's new website Crucial Fictions.
I'd like to thank my subscribers who donate monthly again. That would be John L, Andrew M, Jacob L, Tracy V, and Ted F. If you'd like to donate you can find the buttons at douglaslain.com and at dietsoap.podomatic.com but you might consider that my Kickstarter campaign for the Diet Soap Tour "Think the Impossible" is coming soon. There are many sound clips in this episode. There are clips of Arrested Development, Norman Mailer, Dairy Queen, Europe, and the youtube star Kazookeylele.
This week instead of an expert interview you'll hear my son Benjamin and I discuss the television...Pop the Left #5: More Thoughts on Zerzan<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8195588.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. He is a critic of civilization and especially agriculture and he wants to return to a more primitive collective life. He advocates the nomadic life of prehistoric hunters and gatherers as a potential future.
Zerzan was the guest on Pop the Left #4 where we discussed the idea of reification and took a close look at Zerzan's own notion of nature. This month on Pop the Left C Derick Varn and I speak briefly about the Zerzan interview.
Clips from an interview with Steven Vogel on the radio program Against the Grain, of George Bush singing an REM song, and from Monty Python's Life of Brian can be heard in this one, and Varn and I discuss potential future guests.
Nicholas Pell is again absent, but plans to return for a future episode wherein we'll discuss historical materialism.
You can now leave a voicemail message for Pop the Left and participate in the show. Just head to <a href="https://www.speakpipe.com/poptheleft">speakpipe.com/poptheleft</a> and leave us a message.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-05-01T10_04_39-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-05-01T10_04_39-07_00Wed, 01 May 2013 17:04:39 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainzerzan,primitivism,ideology,marxism1558no86John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. He is a critic of civilization and especially agriculture and he wants to return to a more primitive collective life. He advocates the nomadic life of prehistoric hunters and gatherers as a potential future.
Zerzan was the guest on Pop the Left #4 where we discussed the idea of reification and took a close look at Zerzan's own notion of nature. This month on Pop the Left C Derick Varn and I speak briefly about the Zerzan interview.
Clips from an interview with Steven Vogel on the radio program Against the Grain, of George Bush singing an REM song, and from Monty Python's Life of Brian can be heard in this one, and Varn and I discuss potential future guests.
Nicholas Pell is again absent, but plans to return for a future episode wherein we'll discuss historical materialism.
You can now leave a voicemail message for Pop the Left and participate in the show. Just head to speakpipe.com/poptheleft and leave us a message.
John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. He is a critic of c...Diet Soap Podcast #177: Hegel's Pleasure<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8132364.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br /> This week I discuss Hegel's <a href="http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/phindex.htm">Phenomenology of Spirit</a> with my lovely wife Miriam. We take on the section entitled <a href="http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phc1bb.htm">Pleasure and Necessity</a> and discuss how Jan Svankmajer's film <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-b67wO8oCs">Conspirators of Pleasure</a> seems to enact Hegel's critique.
Diet Soap relies on donations and if you'd like to donate you can find the paypal buttons on <a href="http://douglaslain.com">douglaslain.com</a> and at the <a href="http://dietsoap.podomatic.com">podomatic page</a> for Diet Soap. On the other hand, in the next few weeks I'll be starting a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a Diet Soap tour that called "Think the Impossible!" You can get more information by following me on Facebook, tweeting me on twitter, putting me in a Google Plus circles, or by gassing me, kidnapping me, transporting me to a village on a mysterious island, interrogating me mercilessly, and taking away my name and leaving me with only a number.
Here's a quick explanation of Hegel and Self-Conscious desire:
Our self-consciousness, this way of seeing or perceiving, seeks an object as something alien from itself, it seeks to enjoy this object and in enjoying it to understand the distinction between the self-consciousness and its object as something that belongs to self-consciousness. We cease to live for ourselves, but in seeking to enjoy our separation from the world, we lose ourselves to this universal category of separation.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-04-17T10_12_24-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-04-17T10_12_24-07_00Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:12:24 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainhegel,sex,erotica,desire,pleasure,conspirators,of,surrealism,film1915yes87 This week I discuss Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit with my lovely wife Miriam. We take on the section entitled Pleasure and Necessity and discuss how Jan Svankmajer's film Conspirators of Pleasure seems to enact Hegel's critique.
Diet Soap relies on donations and if you'd like to donate you can find the paypal buttons on douglaslain.com and at the podomatic page for Diet Soap. On the other hand, in the next few weeks I'll be starting a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a Diet Soap tour that called "Think the Impossible!" You can get more information by following me on Facebook, tweeting me on twitter, putting me in a Google Plus circles, or by gassing me, kidnapping me, transporting me to a village on a mysterious island, interrogating me mercilessly, and taking away my name and leaving me with only a number.
Here's a quick explanation of Hegel and Self-Conscious desire:
Our self-consciousness, this way of seeing or perceiving, seeks an object as something alien from itself, it seeks to enjoy this object and in enjoying it to understand the distinction between the self-consciousness and its object as something that belongs to self-consciousness. We cease to live for ourselves, but in seeking to enjoy our separation from the world, we lose ourselves to this universal category of separation.
This week I discuss Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit with my lovely wife Miriam. We take on the ...Diet Soap Podcast #176: Siskel and Ebert and Desire<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8098448.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week the University lecturer and no good commie C Derick Varn. Varn and I discuss the ideas of the French historian, literary critic, and philosopher <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard">Rene Girard</a> while also taking <a href="http://longform.org/stories/playboy-interview-gene-siskel-and-roger-ebert">Siskel and Ebert</a> as our subjects.
Diet Soap relies on donations and if you'd like to donate you can find the paypal buttons on douglaslain.com and at the <a href="http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/">podomatic page</a> for Diet Soap. In the next month I'll be starting a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a Diet Soap tour that I plan to call "Think the Impossible!" but that shouldn't stop you from kicking in a fiver or a tener now.
Per wikipedia Rene Girard was:
<em>a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science. His work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy. He is the author of nearly thirty books (see below), in which he developed the ideas of:
mimetic desire: all of our desires are borrowed from other people;
mimetic rivalry: all conflict originates in mimetic desire;
the scapegoat mechanism is the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence that can come from mimetic rivalry;
the Bible reveals the three previous ideas and denounces the scapegoat mechanism.</em>
Siskel and Ebert, on the other hand, were:
<em>...two film critics [who] shared their opinions of newly released films. Their program aired under various names. Its original hosts were Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times and WLS-TV and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune and WBBM-TV.</em>http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-04-10T00_41_27-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-04-10T00_41_27-07_00Wed, 10 Apr 2013 07:41:27 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainsiskel,ebert,mimetics,film,criticism,philosophy,desire,scapegoats,rivalry,roger,gene3359no88The guest this week the University lecturer and no good commie C Derick Varn. Varn and I discuss the ideas of the French historian, literary critic, and philosopher Rene Girard while also taking Siskel and Ebert as our subjects.
Diet Soap relies on donations and if you'd like to donate you can find the paypal buttons on douglaslain.com and at the podomatic page for Diet Soap. In the next month I'll be starting a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a Diet Soap tour that I plan to call "Think the Impossible!" but that shouldn't stop you from kicking in a fiver or a tener now.
Per wikipedia Rene Girard was:
a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science. His work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy. He is the author of nearly thirty books (see below), in which he developed the ideas of:
mimetic desire: all of our desires are borrowed from other people;
mimetic rivalry: all conflict originates in mimetic desire;
the scapegoat mechanism is the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence that can come from mimetic rivalry;
the Bible reveals the three previous ideas and denounces the scapegoat mechanism.
Siskel and Ebert, on the other hand, were:
...two film critics [who] shared their opinions of newly released films. Their program aired under various names. Its original hosts were Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times and WLS-TV and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune and WBBM-TV.The guest this week the University lecturer and no good commie C Derick Varn. Varn and I discuss ...Pop the Left #4: The Zerzan Reification<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_8005346.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />This month both <a href="http://publish.blubrry.com/content/skepoet.wordpress.com">C Derick Varn</a> and <a href="http://nicholaspell.com/">Nicholas Pell</a> are missing and instead there is a special guest. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;ved=0CDMQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FJohn_Zerzan&amp;ei=ORNKUYHIB6iEjAKznYCwCA&amp;usg=AFQjCNG4hUUEyKkvsh2rNUtuwdood14rFw&amp;bvm=bv.44158598,d.cGE">John Zerzan</a> is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. He's fairly well known, especially in the Pacific Northwest where I am, and his books about Green Anarchism have been influential. But we don't really talk about the environment, agriculture, or civilization, but rather I try to explain what I think is Zerzan's conceptual or philosophical mistake.
For Zerzan civilized life is a mediated or alienated life that isn't worth living and his solution is to return to directly lived experience. What I try to point out in my conversation with him is that his solution is a part of the problem. That is, while he wants to overcome the problem of reification his solution doesn't manage to avoid that mistake.
The word reification means to mistake an abstraction for a physical or empirical object. A reification is not when we see an example of an abstraction in the world, it's not when we take a rubber ball and think of it as an example of roundness, but rather when we take an abstraction to be its own example. That is, when we think that an abstraction can exist on its own without an example.
There are many ideas that are founded on this mistake. God, for instance, is the kind of idea that is a good example of a reification. Nature is, similarly, the same kind of idea.
Again, my conversation with John Zerzan wasn't about prehistory or hunters and gatherers or the current ecological problems that are facing us, but was aimed at his concepts. It was aimed at his idea that we might be able to escape concepts, which I think is his fundamental mistake.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-03-20T13_00_52-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-03-20T13_00_52-07_00Wed, 20 Mar 2013 20:00:52 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lain4137no89This month both C Derick Varn and Nicholas Pell are missing and instead there is a special guest. John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. He's fairly well known, especially in the Pacific Northwest where I am, and his books about Green Anarchism have been influential. But we don't really talk about the environment, agriculture, or civilization, but rather I try to explain what I think is Zerzan's conceptual or philosophical mistake.
For Zerzan civilized life is a mediated or alienated life that isn't worth living and his solution is to return to directly lived experience. What I try to point out in my conversation with him is that his solution is a part of the problem. That is, while he wants to overcome the problem of reification his solution doesn't manage to avoid that mistake.
The word reification means to mistake an abstraction for a physical or empirical object. A reification is not when we see an example of an abstraction in the world, it's not when we take a rubber ball and think of it as an example of roundness, but rather when we take an abstraction to be its own example. That is, when we think that an abstraction can exist on its own without an example.
There are many ideas that are founded on this mistake. God, for instance, is the kind of idea that is a good example of a reification. Nature is, similarly, the same kind of idea.
Again, my conversation with John Zerzan wasn't about prehistory or hunters and gatherers or the current ecological problems that are facing us, but was aimed at his concepts. It was aimed at his idea that we might be able to escape concepts, which I think is his fundamental mistake.
This month both C Derick Varn and Nicholas Pell are missing and instead there is a special guest....Diet Soap Podcast #174: The Falling Rate of Learning<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_7979368.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is <a href="http://www.udel.edu/education/people/DavidBlacker.html">David Blacker</a>. A professor in the school of education at the University of Delaware, Blacker is the the author of several books including Dying to Teach and, most recently, the Falling Rate of Learning.
The abstract of the book reads, in part: "As profits fall and finance rises, capitalism has at this point shifted into a mode of elimination, where human beings—and all life—are now precariously positioned as waste material undergoing managed disposal.
The education system is caught in the throes of this eliminationism across a number of fronts: crushing student debt, impatience with student expression, the looting of vestigial public institutions and, finally, as coup de grâce, an abandonment of the historic ideal of universal education."
This week I want to thank my regular subscribers for their continuing donations to the podcast, and to thank Babafemi M for his donation. If you're thinking about donating you can find the button at <a href="http://www.udel.edu/education/people/DavidBlacker.html">douglaslain.com</a> or at the podomatic page for Diet Soap. In the next few months I hope to start a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a Diet Soap Tour. My novel entitled Billy Moon will be coming out in late August and I'm organizing three events in three cities. I'll be headed to San Francisco, Chicago, and New York for the Think the Impossible Diet Soap tour, and each even will be a live version of the Diet Soap podcast. Guests will include the pop philosopher Daniel Coffeen, the journalist Margaret Kimberley from the Black Agenda Report, Christ Cutrone from the Platypus Affiliated Society, McKenzie Wark author of The Beach Beneath the Street and the Hacker Manifesto, and the economist Andrew Kliman from the Marxist Humanist Initiative. As I say, I'll be raising funds on Kickstarter in order to pay for the trip and accommodations. The idea is that, once I raise enough to cover the initial cost of the trip, donors to the tour will set my itinerary, creating additional stops as I traverse the country by rail.
The music you're listening to right now is Different Trains by Steve Reich, but in just a moment you'll be listening to David Blacker and I discuss the Falling Rate of Learning.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-03-14T14_11_18-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-03-14T14_11_18-07_00Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:11:18 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,marxism,education,blacker3703no90The guest this week is David Blacker. A professor in the school of education at the University of Delaware, Blacker is the the author of several books including Dying to Teach and, most recently, the Falling Rate of Learning.
The abstract of the book reads, in part: "As profits fall and finance rises, capitalism has at this point shifted into a mode of elimination, where human beings—and all life—are now precariously positioned as waste material undergoing managed disposal.
The education system is caught in the throes of this eliminationism across a number of fronts: crushing student debt, impatience with student expression, the looting of vestigial public institutions and, finally, as coup de grâce, an abandonment of the historic ideal of universal education."
This week I want to thank my regular subscribers for their continuing donations to the podcast, and to thank Babafemi M for his donation. If you're thinking about donating you can find the button at douglaslain.com or at the podomatic page for Diet Soap. In the next few months I hope to start a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund a Diet Soap Tour. My novel entitled Billy Moon will be coming out in late August and I'm organizing three events in three cities. I'll be headed to San Francisco, Chicago, and New York for the Think the Impossible Diet Soap tour, and each even will be a live version of the Diet Soap podcast. Guests will include the pop philosopher Daniel Coffeen, the journalist Margaret Kimberley from the Black Agenda Report, Christ Cutrone from the Platypus Affiliated Society, McKenzie Wark author of The Beach Beneath the Street and the Hacker Manifesto, and the economist Andrew Kliman from the Marxist Humanist Initiative. As I say, I'll be raising funds on Kickstarter in order to pay for the trip and accommodations. The idea is that, once I raise enough to cover the initial cost of the trip, donors to the tour will set my itinerary, creating additional stops as I traverse the country by rail.
The music you're listening to right now is Different Trains by Steve Reich, but in just a moment you'll be listening to David Blacker and I discuss the Falling Rate of Learning.
The guest this week is David Blacker. A professor in the school of education at the University o...Diet Soap Podcast #171: A Left with No Future? <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_7807708.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is <a href="http://arthistory.berkeley.edu/Faculty_%20TJClark%20.html">TJ Clark</a>. TJ Clark is an art historian and a former member of the Situationist International. His paper <a href="http://newleftreview.org/II/74/t-j-clark-for-a-left-with-no-future">For a Left with No Future</a> has gotten quite a bit of attention over the last six months, and this essay is the subject of our discussion this week. My hero Slavoj Zizek has supported this essay saying "We have to admit the grain of truth in this simplified bleak vision which seems to sap the very possibility of a proper political Event: perhaps, we should effectively renounce the myth of a Great Awakening—the moment when (if not the old working class then) a new alliance of the dispossessed, multitude or whatever, will gather its forces and master a decisive intervention."
In my conversation with TJ Clark he contradicts this interpretation, saying that he does believe in the ability of the people to make a spontaneous revolution, and yet he continues to advocate a tragic vision.
It's Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 (well past the Eschaton) and I'm Douglas Lain, the host of the Diet Soap podcast.
Okay. So the Podomatic feed is up and running again and I'm slowly uploading the back catalog for the podcast. So you can subscribe to the podcast through my website douglaslain.com or through podomatic, and you might get email alerts as I upload old podcasts.
I also want to urge you donate to Diet Soap and to tell your friends about the podcast. While I'm aware of how dreadfully Marxist the podcast has become I also believe that I haven't wandered away from real human concerns here. My goal for 2013 is to continue on, to hold tight to the direction the podcast has found, while also returning to the sense of desperate improvisation that founded this thing. The strange moment that I'm in is this: I believe more firmly than ever in Value theory and Marx's critique of Capital while I'm simultaneously convinced that we are as far away from resolving the deadlock of Capitalism as we've ever been.
In any case you can find the donate button at <a href="http://douglaslain.com">douglaslain.com</a> and at <a href="http://dietsoap.podomatic.com">dietsoap.podomatic.com</a>.
In this episode you'll here clips from older episodes of this podcast and of Talking Art. My son Benjamin and I discussed the Arab Spring and Manet's painting Luncheon in the Grass for Diet Soap and the now defunct One Thousand Words podcast. (I'd love to revive that second effort, although editing an art podcast was very time consuming.) This conversation with TJ Clark represents a culmination or conclusion for Diet Soap. Without meaning to I think we've reached a turning point here.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-02-06T01_25_57-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-02-06T01_25_57-08_00Wed, 06 Feb 2013 09:25:57 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainenlightenment,modernism,time,hisoty,tragedy,leftism,marxism,revolution,greece3942no91The guest this week is TJ Clark. TJ Clark is an art historian and a former member of the Situationist International. His paper For a Left with No Future has gotten quite a bit of attention over the last six months, and this essay is the subject of our discussion this week. My hero Slavoj Zizek has supported this essay saying "We have to admit the grain of truth in this simplified bleak vision which seems to sap the very possibility of a proper political Event: perhaps, we should effectively renounce the myth of a Great Awakening—the moment when (if not the old working class then) a new alliance of the dispossessed, multitude or whatever, will gather its forces and master a decisive intervention."
In my conversation with TJ Clark he contradicts this interpretation, saying that he does believe in the ability of the people to make a spontaneous revolution, and yet he continues to advocate a tragic vision.
It's Wednesday, February 6th, 2013 (well past the Eschaton) and I'm Douglas Lain, the host of the Diet Soap podcast.
Okay. So the Podomatic feed is up and running again and I'm slowly uploading the back catalog for the podcast. So you can subscribe to the podcast through my website douglaslain.com or through podomatic, and you might get email alerts as I upload old podcasts.
I also want to urge you donate to Diet Soap and to tell your friends about the podcast. While I'm aware of how dreadfully Marxist the podcast has become I also believe that I haven't wandered away from real human concerns here. My goal for 2013 is to continue on, to hold tight to the direction the podcast has found, while also returning to the sense of desperate improvisation that founded this thing. The strange moment that I'm in is this: I believe more firmly than ever in Value theory and Marx's critique of Capital while I'm simultaneously convinced that we are as far away from resolving the deadlock of Capitalism as we've ever been.
In any case you can find the donate button at douglaslain.com and at dietsoap.podomatic.com.
In this episode you'll here clips from older episodes of this podcast and of Talking Art. My son Benjamin and I discussed the Arab Spring and Manet's painting Luncheon in the Grass for Diet Soap and the now defunct One Thousand Words podcast. (I'd love to revive that second effort, although editing an art podcast was very time consuming.) This conversation with TJ Clark represents a culmination or conclusion for Diet Soap. Without meaning to I think we've reached a turning point here.
The guest this week is TJ Clark. TJ Clark is an art historian and a former member of the Situati...Pop the Left #2: Sexy Anarchists vs Marxist Eggheads<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_7775524.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />This week on the Diet Soap channel: Pop the Left #2
Pop the Left is currently a special program done irregularly with <a href="http://skepoet.wordpress.com/">C Derick Varn</a> (a University Lecturer living in Jeonju) and <a href="http://nicholaspell.com/">Nicholas Pell</a> (a freelancer writer and cynic living in LA) and this episode features a conversation with Varn as we dissect just why Anarchists are so different, so appealing, while Marxists look like they've spent the evening coughing into their overgrown beards and forgetting to clip their fingernails.
The other question we ask is why is it that Anarchists and Marxists alike can't really think past Capitalism.
However, the weird thing is that by the end of this second episode we've stumbled into our unconscious and end up in a seemingly never ending stream of penises...I mean Freudian slips.
Enjoy! http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-01-30T00_15_43-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-01-30T00_15_43-08_00Wed, 30 Jan 2013 08:15:43 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainanarchism,philosophy,marxism,ideology2473yes92This week on the Diet Soap channel: Pop the Left #2
Pop the Left is currently a special program done irregularly with C Derick Varn (a University Lecturer living in Jeonju) and Nicholas Pell (a freelancer writer and cynic living in LA) and this episode features a conversation with Varn as we dissect just why Anarchists are so different, so appealing, while Marxists look like they've spent the evening coughing into their overgrown beards and forgetting to clip their fingernails.
The other question we ask is why is it that Anarchists and Marxists alike can't really think past Capitalism.
However, the weird thing is that by the end of this second episode we've stumbled into our unconscious and end up in a seemingly never ending stream of penises...I mean Freudian slips.
Enjoy! This week on the Diet Soap channel: Pop the Left #2
Pop the Left is currently a special progra...Diet Soap Podcast #170: Money without Value? <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_7749075.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the podcaster Tom O'Brien. O'Brien grew up in Athboy, Ireland and is now living in London and his From <a href="http://fromalpha2omega.podomatic.com/">Alpha to Omega podcast</a> was apparently partially inspired by this one. Being a regular listener to his show I'm glad to have had some claim to it. Tom O'Brien and I discuss <a href="http://fromalpha2omega.podomatic.com/entry/2012-10-26T16_55_21-07_00">Kliman's value theory</a> and the m<a href="http://fromalpha2omega.podomatic.com/entry/2012-11-20T16_00_21-08_00">onetary theory of Mathew Forstater</a>.
The next <a href="http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=117700&cmd=tc">Talkshoe after party</a> will occur this Sunday the 27th at 1pm PST or 4pm EST and I encourage everyone who is listening to participate. If you don't want to talk you could just listen to the live stream and use the chat function to interject questions.
This week Andrew M made a generous donation and I've rebooted the original podomatic page for the podcast. So you can now find Diet Soap at douglaslain.com and dietsoap.podomatic.com. The podcast is also available via iTunes and I urge you to subscribe there and to consider donating to the podcast if you can.
In this episode O'Brien and I focus on a fairly narrow point about value and money, but I believe it is a question that has fairly far reaching implications. If one believes, as Forstater does, that the current economic crisis could be mitigated or even solved if we were to allow ourselves to live with ballooning deficits then a political project to unshackled the wallet of Washington, one demanding more social spending and job creation, would be adequate. If, on the other hand, you believe that the realm of production has to be changed if we're to avoid recessions and depressions and that there are limits on what government intervention can accomplish then something more radical, even unthinkable, is required.
The music you're listening to right now is a George Antheil's Jazz Symphony, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Tom O'Brien and I discuss money and value.
<a href="http://douglaslain.net/?attachment_id=1351" rel="attachment wp-att-1351"><img src="http://douglaslain.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/dietsoap170-300x270.jpg" alt="dietsoap170" width="300" height="270" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1351" /></a> http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-01-23T22_49_00-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-01-23T22_49_00-08_00Thu, 24 Jan 2013 06:49:00 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,philosophy,podcast2635no93The guest this week is the podcaster Tom O'Brien. O'Brien grew up in Athboy, Ireland and is now living in London and his From Alpha to Omega podcast was apparently partially inspired by this one. Being a regular listener to his show I'm glad to have had some claim to it. Tom O'Brien and I discuss Kliman's value theory and the monetary theory of Mathew Forstater.
The next Talkshoe after party will occur this Sunday the 27th at 1pm PST or 4pm EST and I encourage everyone who is listening to participate. If you don't want to talk you could just listen to the live stream and use the chat function to interject questions.
This week Andrew M made a generous donation and I've rebooted the original podomatic page for the podcast. So you can now find Diet Soap at douglaslain.com and dietsoap.podomatic.com. The podcast is also available via iTunes and I urge you to subscribe there and to consider donating to the podcast if you can.
In this episode O'Brien and I focus on a fairly narrow point about value and money, but I believe it is a question that has fairly far reaching implications. If one believes, as Forstater does, that the current economic crisis could be mitigated or even solved if we were to allow ourselves to live with ballooning deficits then a political project to unshackled the wallet of Washington, one demanding more social spending and job creation, would be adequate. If, on the other hand, you believe that the realm of production has to be changed if we're to avoid recessions and depressions and that there are limits on what government intervention can accomplish then something more radical, even unthinkable, is required.
The music you're listening to right now is a George Antheil's Jazz Symphony, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Tom O'Brien and I discuss money and value.
The guest this week is the podcaster Tom O'Brien. O'Brien grew up in Athboy, Ireland and is now l...Diet Soap Podcast #169: A Time for Post-Marxism?<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_7719705.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the author and professor <a href="http://www.newschool.edu/lang/faculty.aspx?id=1718">McKenzie Wark</a>. Wark is the author of the books the <a href="http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html">Hacker Manifesto</a>, <a href="http://www.futureofthebook.org/gamertheory2.0/">Gamer Theory</a>, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/912567.Virtual_Geography">Virtual Geography: Living With Global Media Events</a>, and most recently <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beach-Beneath-Street-Situationist-International/dp/1844677206">The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International</a>. This is McKenzie Wark's second visit to the Diet Soap podcast and this time we discuss the late great Karl Marx and how one should properly worship him…I mean understand his work.
The next Talkshoe after party will occur on Sunday the 27th at noon PST or 3pm EST and I encourage everyone who is listening to participate. <a href="http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=117700&cmd=tc">On the 13th we had Brendan Cooney participate</a> and in the future I will try to get podcast guests involved with the Talkshoe conversation whenever possible. I also want to thank Caytlin G and Michael P for donating to the podcast and encourage everyone who likes the podcast to donate or become a monthly subscriber. I'll be reinstating the Podomatic page soon, probably in February, and donations help to speed the reappearance of the Podomatic page along.
I should also point out that I recently discovered that the Marxist Humanist Initiative has scheduled a meeting for Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013 entitled the "<a href="http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/philosophy-organization/the-impasse-in-movements-for-social-change-and-the-need-for-%E2%80%9Corganization-of-thought%E2%80%9D.html">Impasse in Movements for Social Change and the Need for the 'Organization of Thought'</a>." I mention the meeting because the MHI has suggested that participants listen to episode 165 of Diet Soap as preparation for the teleconference. Number 165 was the episode wherein C Derick Varn and I discussed Adorno's essay "Resignation." I'm quite pleased to have influenced people to think about the questions posed on Diet Soap.
<a href="http://douglaslain.net/diet-soap-podcast-169-time-postmarxism/dietsoap169/" rel="attachment wp-att-1345"><img src="http://douglaslain.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/dietsoap169-300x270.jpg" alt="dietsoap169" width="300" height="270" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1345" /></a>http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-01-17T08_49_08-08_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2013-01-17T08_49_08-08_00Thu, 17 Jan 2013 16:49:08 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,mckenzie,wark,information,post-marxism,value,theory2732no94The guest this week is the author and professor McKenzie Wark. Wark is the author of the books the Hacker Manifesto, Gamer Theory, Virtual Geography: Living With Global Media Events, and most recently The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International. This is McKenzie Wark's second visit to the Diet Soap podcast and this time we discuss the late great Karl Marx and how one should properly worship him…I mean understand his work.
The next Talkshoe after party will occur on Sunday the 27th at noon PST or 3pm EST and I encourage everyone who is listening to participate. On the 13th we had Brendan Cooney participate and in the future I will try to get podcast guests involved with the Talkshoe conversation whenever possible. I also want to thank Caytlin G and Michael P for donating to the podcast and encourage everyone who likes the podcast to donate or become a monthly subscriber. I'll be reinstating the Podomatic page soon, probably in February, and donations help to speed the reappearance of the Podomatic page along.
I should also point out that I recently discovered that the Marxist Humanist Initiative has scheduled a meeting for Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013 entitled the "Impasse in Movements for Social Change and the Need for the 'Organization of Thought'." I mention the meeting because the MHI has suggested that participants listen to episode 165 of Diet Soap as preparation for the teleconference. Number 165 was the episode wherein C Derick Varn and I discussed Adorno's essay "Resignation." I'm quite pleased to have influenced people to think about the questions posed on Diet Soap.
The guest this week is the author and professor McKenzie Wark. Wark is the author of the books th...Diet Soap Podcast #158: Are Abstractions Necessary?<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_7203669.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3-YVJ-gPDUs">youtube star and Marxist Brendan Cooney</a> and we discuss Marx and Hegel. This is the second half of our conversation, slightly edited. You can find more from Cooney on his <a href="http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/">Kapitalism101 blog</a>.
I am still planning on canceling the Podomatic feed for Diet Soap and moving the podcast to douglaslain.com. If you subscribe to podcast through podomatic you'll need to change over to the new feed by the end of the month, that means that this podcast will be the last podcast on the podomatic website and next week you'll find instructions on how to switch the feeds instead. When I make the switch I'm also going to restart the Diet Soap philosophy workshop and that workshop will continue weekly, or at least it will be a part of every episode. That means that while I'll continue on discussing Hegel once a month, I've decided to expand the workshop to a weekly format. After each Diet Soap episode subscribers to the podcast will get a chance to participate in a conversation about that episode. So, yes, there will be regular Hegel episodes, but subscribers will also get a chance to discuss all the different subjects that we cover or bring up their own ideas. Finally, I am also going to start a monthly podcast with C. Derick Varn called Pop the Left. We'll take a critical look at the politics of the Left from a Leftist perspective and, at first, that'll be hosted through the same RSS feed as Diet Soap, but if a few more people donate or subscribe I'll start a second feed for Pop the Left on its own. So, you can help me start a new podcast by donating today. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-09-21T11_48_37-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-09-21T11_48_37-07_00Fri, 21 Sep 2012 18:48:37 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,philosophy,surrealism,ideology2123no95The guest this week is the youtube star and Marxist Brendan Cooney and we discuss Marx and Hegel. This is the second half of our conversation, slightly edited. You can find more from Cooney on his Kapitalism101 blog.
I am still planning on canceling the Podomatic feed for Diet Soap and moving the podcast to douglaslain.com. If you subscribe to podcast through podomatic you'll need to change over to the new feed by the end of the month, that means that this podcast will be the last podcast on the podomatic website and next week you'll find instructions on how to switch the feeds instead. When I make the switch I'm also going to restart the Diet Soap philosophy workshop and that workshop will continue weekly, or at least it will be a part of every episode. That means that while I'll continue on discussing Hegel once a month, I've decided to expand the workshop to a weekly format. After each Diet Soap episode subscribers to the podcast will get a chance to participate in a conversation about that episode. So, yes, there will be regular Hegel episodes, but subscribers will also get a chance to discuss all the different subjects that we cover or bring up their own ideas. Finally, I am also going to start a monthly podcast with C. Derick Varn called Pop the Left. We'll take a critical look at the politics of the Left from a Leftist perspective and, at first, that'll be hosted through the same RSS feed as Diet Soap, but if a few more people donate or subscribe I'll start a second feed for Pop the Left on its own. So, you can help me start a new podcast by donating today. The guest this week is the youtube star and Marxist Brendan Cooney and we discuss Marx and Hegel....Diet Soap Podcast #157: Real Abstract Robots?<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_7169763.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0tdeeocaBNY">Brendan Cooney</a> and we discuss his Law of Value youtube video series (I play the soundtrack for his second video), and discuss real abstractions as explained in Marx's bestselling book Capital. We start off discussing whether Data from the television show Star Trek the Next Generation would generate value if he time traveled to this current Capitalist economy.
I am still planning on canceling the Podomatic feed for Diet Soap and moving the podcast to douglaslain.com. If you subscribe to podcast through podomatic you'll need to change over to the new feed by the end of the month, that means that the next podcast will be the last podcast on the podomatic website. In that episode I'll try to explain just how to find the Diet Soap RSS feed from Blubrry. When I make the switch I'm also going to restart the Diet Soap philosophy workshop and that workshop will continue weekly, or at least it will be a part of every episode. That means that while I'll continue on discussing Hegel once a month, I've decided to expand the workshop to a weekly format. After each Diet Soap episode subscribers to the podcast will get a chance to participate in a conversation about that episode. So, yes, there will be regular Hegel episodes, but subscribers will also get a chance to discuss all the different subjects that we cover or bring up their own ideas. Finally, I am also going to start a monthly podcast with C. Derick Varn called Pop the Left. We'll take a critical look at the politics of the Left from a Leftist perspective and, at first, that'll be hosted through the same RSS feed as Diet Soap, but if a few more people donate or subscribe I'll start a second feed for Pop the Left on its own. So, you can help me start a new podcast by donating today. http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-09-13T23_36_35-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-09-13T23_36_35-07_00Fri, 14 Sep 2012 06:36:35 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainmarxism,philosophy,podcast,surrealism2389no96The guest this week is Brendan Cooney and we discuss his Law of Value youtube video series (I play the soundtrack for his second video), and discuss real abstractions as explained in Marx's bestselling book Capital. We start off discussing whether Data from the television show Star Trek the Next Generation would generate value if he time traveled to this current Capitalist economy.
I am still planning on canceling the Podomatic feed for Diet Soap and moving the podcast to douglaslain.com. If you subscribe to podcast through podomatic you'll need to change over to the new feed by the end of the month, that means that the next podcast will be the last podcast on the podomatic website. In that episode I'll try to explain just how to find the Diet Soap RSS feed from Blubrry. When I make the switch I'm also going to restart the Diet Soap philosophy workshop and that workshop will continue weekly, or at least it will be a part of every episode. That means that while I'll continue on discussing Hegel once a month, I've decided to expand the workshop to a weekly format. After each Diet Soap episode subscribers to the podcast will get a chance to participate in a conversation about that episode. So, yes, there will be regular Hegel episodes, but subscribers will also get a chance to discuss all the different subjects that we cover or bring up their own ideas. Finally, I am also going to start a monthly podcast with C. Derick Varn called Pop the Left. We'll take a critical look at the politics of the Left from a Leftist perspective and, at first, that'll be hosted through the same RSS feed as Diet Soap, but if a few more people donate or subscribe I'll start a second feed for Pop the Left on its own. So, you can help me start a new podcast by donating today. The guest this week is Brendan Cooney and we discuss his Law of Value youtube video series (I pla...Diet Soap #156: Karl Marx and the Robots<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_7137549.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />There are two guests this week: the University Student Zanda Knight and my son Benjamin Lain. We talk about Karl Marx's Capital and try to answer the question "Why can't a robot make value?" We discuss <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amP2Z0PxKyQ">Data</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kckEEQKXaCU">Cherry 2000</a>, and Marx's notion of <a href="http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/law-of-value-9-abstract-labor/">abstract labor time</a> and exchange value. After this conversation you'll hear the soundtrack for <a href="http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/law-of-value-9-abstract-labor/">Brendan Cooney's latest video</a> from his Law of Value series. Brendan Cooney will be the guest next week.
Couple of announcements. First, I'm going to cancel the Podomatic feed for Diet Soap. Instead I'll be hosting Diet Soap at douglaslain.com and using Blubrry. If you subscribe to podcast through Podomatic you'll need to change over to the new feed by the end of the month and I'll be posting instructions and talking about how to do that in the weeks to come.
Second, I'm going to restart the <a href="http://douglaslain.net/diet-soap-philosophy-workshop/">Diet Soap Philosophy Workshop</a> and add a new twist. While we'll continue on discussing Hegel once a month, I've decided to open expand the workshop to a weekly format. That is, after each Diet Soap episode subscribers to the podcast will get a chance to participate in a conversation about it. So, yes, once a month there will be a Hegel episode, but subscribers will also get a chance to discuss all the different subjects that we cover or bring up their own ideas. The people at the Partially Examined Life are doing something similar for each of their podcasts and I thought it would be a good idea for Diet Soap. Finally, this month is when I'll be starting a second podcast with C. Derick Varn called Pop the Left. That'll be a monthly podcast that takes a critical look at the politics of the Left from a Leftist perspective.
You've probably noticed that Diet Soap has slipped into a biweekly schedule. I will be rectifying that and returning to a regular weekly schedule this month. Diet Soap should come out on Thursday, every Thursday.
I should also mention that I've started blogging for the Partially Examined Life, and that I'm continuing to blog for the Right Where You're Sitting Now site and for Tor.com. I hope to include collaged readings of those blog entries in future episodes.
The music you're listening to is Hindemith's Kammermusik No. 5, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Zanda, Ben, and we discuss Marx and the Robots.http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-09-06T11_21_35-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-09-06T11_21_35-07_00Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:21:35 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainanarchism,philosophy,marxism,surrealism2904no97There are two guests this week: the University Student Zanda Knight and my son Benjamin Lain. We talk about Karl Marx's Capital and try to answer the question "Why can't a robot make value?" We discuss Data, Cherry 2000, and Marx's notion of abstract labor time and exchange value. After this conversation you'll hear the soundtrack for Brendan Cooney's latest video from his Law of Value series. Brendan Cooney will be the guest next week.
Couple of announcements. First, I'm going to cancel the Podomatic feed for Diet Soap. Instead I'll be hosting Diet Soap at douglaslain.com and using Blubrry. If you subscribe to podcast through Podomatic you'll need to change over to the new feed by the end of the month and I'll be posting instructions and talking about how to do that in the weeks to come.
Second, I'm going to restart the Diet Soap Philosophy Workshop and add a new twist. While we'll continue on discussing Hegel once a month, I've decided to open expand the workshop to a weekly format. That is, after each Diet Soap episode subscribers to the podcast will get a chance to participate in a conversation about it. So, yes, once a month there will be a Hegel episode, but subscribers will also get a chance to discuss all the different subjects that we cover or bring up their own ideas. The people at the Partially Examined Life are doing something similar for each of their podcasts and I thought it would be a good idea for Diet Soap. Finally, this month is when I'll be starting a second podcast with C. Derick Varn called Pop the Left. That'll be a monthly podcast that takes a critical look at the politics of the Left from a Leftist perspective.
You've probably noticed that Diet Soap has slipped into a biweekly schedule. I will be rectifying that and returning to a regular weekly schedule this month. Diet Soap should come out on Thursday, every Thursday.
I should also mention that I've started blogging for the Partially Examined Life, and that I'm continuing to blog for the Right Where You're Sitting Now site and for Tor.com. I hope to include collaged readings of those blog entries in future episodes.
The music you're listening to is Hindemith's Kammermusik No. 5, but in just a moment you'll be listening to Zanda, Ben, and we discuss Marx and the Robots.There are two guests this week: the University Student Zanda Knight and my son Benjamin Lain. We ...Diet Soap #155: The Charlie Rose Abstraction <img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_7077544.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the filmmaker <a href="http://www.steveisnothappy.com/">Andrew Fillipone</a>. Andrew Filippone Jr. is the filmmaker in New York City made the short film <a href="http://www.steveisnothappy.com/-charlie-rose--by-samuel-beckett.html">'Charlie Rose' by Samuel Beckett</a>. Some of Andrew's other works include: The Status Films, an all-text, 4-part, 80-minute documentary film cycle made from real-time searches of public Facebook status updates; Happy Monday, a film-sculpture hybrid that he describes as a "documentary film object;" and The Auroras of Autumn, a silent, abstract short that screened at the 8th Berlin International Director’s Lounge, but in this episode we discuss two other films the first being his mock conspiracy film <a href="http://www.steveisnothappy.com/no!-gabba-gabba.html">No! Gabba, Gabba</a> and the other an experimental film entitled <a href="http://www.steveisnothappy.com/999.html">999</a>.
In this episode there is a point where I explain the idea of a concrete abstraction, and I thought it would be worthwhile to explain that idea here at the outset.
The other day I was asked to define the idea of a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPHZOvv3wt4&feature=player_embedded">concrete abstraction</a> and I said that this was the idea that reality is inexorably both conceptual and sensual. One can’t separate out the idea of what it is to be something from the sensual qualities one encounters upon meeting that something. An apple is both an idea and an experience. Once you’ve grasped this the question isn’t “What is a concrete abstraction?” but rather “What isn’t a concrete abstraction?”
Couple of announcements. First, <a href="http://douglaslain.net/diet-soap-philosophy-workshop/">the Philosophy Workshop</a> has been on hiatus over the summer I will be restarting that project in September and I want to encourage people to join up. Subscribing to the workshop is really a way to support the podcast and if you enjoy Diet Soap you should consider subscribing or making a one time donation. So, in September we'll pick up with Hegel's phenomenology, and I think I'll try to use Google Plus to host the online conversations.
Another announcement is that soon I'll be launching a second, monthly, podcast called Pop the Left. C Derick Varn and I have been recording conversations for this and this coming podcast will be an examination and critique of the left from the left. Along those lines I recently received an email from TJ Clark accepting an invitation to come onto Diet Soap. Clark is an art historian and former member of the Situationist International and his latest essay "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBzednyvxdQ">For a Left with No Future</a>," for all it's flaws, is a valiant effort and really <a href="http://newleftreview.org/II/74/t-j-clark-for-a-left-with-no-future">required reading</a>.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-08-22T10_59_34-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-08-22T10_59_34-07_00Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:59:34 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Laincharlie,rose,art,filmmaker,youtube,surrealism,conceptual,philosophy,antisemitism2972no98The guest this week is the filmmaker Andrew Fillipone. Andrew Filippone Jr. is the filmmaker in New York City made the short film 'Charlie Rose' by Samuel Beckett. Some of Andrew's other works include: The Status Films, an all-text, 4-part, 80-minute documentary film cycle made from real-time searches of public Facebook status updates; Happy Monday, a film-sculpture hybrid that he describes as a "documentary film object;" and The Auroras of Autumn, a silent, abstract short that screened at the 8th Berlin International Director’s Lounge, but in this episode we discuss two other films the first being his mock conspiracy film No! Gabba, Gabba and the other an experimental film entitled 999.
In this episode there is a point where I explain the idea of a concrete abstraction, and I thought it would be worthwhile to explain that idea here at the outset.
The other day I was asked to define the idea of a concrete abstraction and I said that this was the idea that reality is inexorably both conceptual and sensual. One can’t separate out the idea of what it is to be something from the sensual qualities one encounters upon meeting that something. An apple is both an idea and an experience. Once you’ve grasped this the question isn’t “What is a concrete abstraction?” but rather “What isn’t a concrete abstraction?”
Couple of announcements. First, the Philosophy Workshop has been on hiatus over the summer I will be restarting that project in September and I want to encourage people to join up. Subscribing to the workshop is really a way to support the podcast and if you enjoy Diet Soap you should consider subscribing or making a one time donation. So, in September we'll pick up with Hegel's phenomenology, and I think I'll try to use Google Plus to host the online conversations.
Another announcement is that soon I'll be launching a second, monthly, podcast called Pop the Left. C Derick Varn and I have been recording conversations for this and this coming podcast will be an examination and critique of the left from the left. Along those lines I recently received an email from TJ Clark accepting an invitation to come onto Diet Soap. Clark is an art historian and former member of the Situationist International and his latest essay "For a Left with No Future," for all it's flaws, is a valiant effort and really required reading.
The guest this week is the filmmaker Andrew Fillipone. Andrew Filippone Jr. is the filmmaker in ...Diet Soap Podcast #151: Our Dreadful Return to Normal<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_6866930.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />The guest this week is the freelance journalist <a herf="http://blackagendareport.com/?q=blog/172">Margaret Kimberley</a>. Ms. Kimberley writes a regular column for the <a href="http://blackagendareport.com">Black Agenda Report</a> and is a regular guest on Diet Soap as well. This time we discuss the death of Occupy, the failure of Wisconsin, and the problem of status quo politics.
I want to thank everyone who is a regular subscriber to Diet Soap and to thank Robert M for donating. If you'd like to donate or subscribe to the podcast and <a href="http://douglaslain.net/diet-soap-philosophy-workshop/">Philosophy Workshop</a> the buttons are at dietsoap.podomatic.com and at douglaslain.com. Donors of $6 or more in the US or $15 internationally will receive a copy of my book "Pick Your Battle." Also, if you'd rather not receive a copy of "Pick Your Battle" you can get on the list for a copy of "The Doom that Came to LOLcats" which is a novella due out from Eraserhead press this year.
I should tell you all to follow me on twitter and friend me on Facebook. Also you can send me email through my webpage. That's douglaslain.com.
Again, this week is another conversation with the journalist Margaret Kimberley, and in future weeks you'll hear from the Pop philosopher Daniel Coffeen, the bizarro writer Bradley Sands, and many others.
The music this week includes the Theme to the 1980 film Friday the 13th and an excerpt from Storm Large's hit <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5U-YT-mRmI">My Vagina is Eight Miles Wide</a>.
http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-07-13T11_09_46-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-07-13T11_09_46-07_00Fri, 13 Jul 2012 18:09:46 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainoccupy,politics,race,dissidence,democrats,vagina3421yes99The guest this week is the freelance journalist Margaret Kimberley. Ms. Kimberley writes a regular column for the Black Agenda Report and is a regular guest on Diet Soap as well. This time we discuss the death of Occupy, the failure of Wisconsin, and the problem of status quo politics.
I want to thank everyone who is a regular subscriber to Diet Soap and to thank Robert M for donating. If you'd like to donate or subscribe to the podcast and Philosophy Workshop the buttons are at dietsoap.podomatic.com and at douglaslain.com. Donors of $6 or more in the US or $15 internationally will receive a copy of my book "Pick Your Battle." Also, if you'd rather not receive a copy of "Pick Your Battle" you can get on the list for a copy of "The Doom that Came to LOLcats" which is a novella due out from Eraserhead press this year.
I should tell you all to follow me on twitter and friend me on Facebook. Also you can send me email through my webpage. That's douglaslain.com.
Again, this week is another conversation with the journalist Margaret Kimberley, and in future weeks you'll hear from the Pop philosopher Daniel Coffeen, the bizarro writer Bradley Sands, and many others.
The music this week includes the Theme to the 1980 film Friday the 13th and an excerpt from Storm Large's hit My Vagina is Eight Miles Wide.
The guest this week is the freelance journalist Margaret Kimberley. Ms. Kimberley writes a regul...Diet Soap #150: Bedazzled by Hegel's Monstrous Reason<img src="http://assets.podomatic.net/ts/08/37/96/dietsoap/1400x1400_6808449.jpg" alt="itunes pic" /><br />There is no guest this week as Benjamin and I discuss <a href="http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel//phindex.htm">Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit</a> focussing on Hegel's ideas about reason and organic life while pointing to the movies <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedazzled_(1967_film)">Bedazzled (a comedy starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore)</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021884/">Frankenstein</a> to help us understand.
I want to thank everyone who is a regular donor to Diet Soap and to thank everyone who regularly participates in the Philosophy workshop. I didn't receive any individual donations last week, but I did receive help from my regular subscribers. If you'd like to donate or subscribe to the podcast the buttons are at dietsoap.podomatic.com and at douglaslain.com. Donations of $6 or more in the US or $15 internationally will receive a copy of my book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pick-Your-Battle-Alternative-ebook/dp/B005007XJG/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2">Pick Your Battle</a>." Also, if you'd rather not receive a copy of "Pick Your Battle" you can get on the list for a copy of "The Doom that Came to LOLcats" which is a novella due out from Eraserhead press this year.
I should tell you all to follow me on twitter and friend me on Facebook. Also you can send me email through my webpage. That's douglaslain.com.
Again, this week is another Hegel podcast with my son Benjamin. Next week we'll hear from the journalist Margaret Kimberley, and I have conversations with Daniel Coffeen, Jason Horsley, Bradley Sands, and many others in the hopper. The music you're listening to is the Vitamin String Quartet's cover of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart, but in just a moment you'll be listening to my son Benjamin and I discuss Hegel's Reason.
---
Unrelated Essay: Star Trek, Pong, and Class Struggle
One question that came out of John Scalzi’s apt blog post “Straight, White, Male: The Easiest Difficulty Level There Is” is this one:
“How might we understand the idea of class through video games?”
That is, if using the analogy of an RPG video game can help white male nerds understand institutionalized racism and white privilege, it’s also possible that video games might help nerds of every gender and race understand the concept of class structure and class struggle.
In Adam Curtis’s documentary “All Watched Over by Machine’s of Loving Grace” the filmmaker interviewed Loren Carpenter about his 1991 experiment using the game Pong to inspire mass collaboration. In the interview Carpenter explains how a group of 5000 people spontaneously figured out how to collaborate to play pong on a giant screen. The collaborating crowd spontaneously figured out how to cooperate with a minimum amount of communication and no hierarchal structures of power; there were no overt directions nor any chain of command, but the crowd was able to figure out how to collectively move the paddles on the big screen and keep the ball bouncing back and forth. They learned how to run a flight simulator game collectively, and how to solve the variety of other puzzles put to them. They worked together each time in a completely egalitarian way and as a mass.
<a href="http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/06/star-trek-pong-and-class-struggle">Read More at Tor.com</a>http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-07-05T18_57_50-07_00http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2012-07-05T18_57_50-07_00Fri, 06 Jul 2012 01:57:50 GMT2015-07-292013-12-11http://dietsoap.podomatic.com
Douglas Lainphilosophy,hegel,bedazzled,frankenstein1752no100There is no guest this week as Benjamin and I discuss Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit focussing on Hegel's ideas about reason and organic life while pointing to the movies Bedazzled (a comedy starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) and Frankenstein to help us understand.
I want to thank everyone who is a regular donor to Diet Soap and to thank everyone who regularly participates in the Philosophy workshop. I didn't receive any individual donations last week, but I did receive help from my regular subscribers. If you'd like to donate or subscribe to the podcast the buttons are at dietsoap.podomatic.com and at douglaslain.com. Donations of $6 or more in the US or $15 internationally will receive a copy of my book "Pick Your Battle." Also, if you'd rather not receive a copy of "Pick Your Battle" you can get on the list for a copy of "The Doom that Came to LOLcats" which is a novella due out from Eraserhead press this year.
I should tell you all to follow me on twitter and friend me on Facebook. Also you can send me email through my webpage. That's douglaslain.com.
Again, this week is another Hegel podcast with my son Benjamin. Next week we'll hear from the journalist Margaret Kimberley, and I have conversations with Daniel Coffeen, Jason Horsley, Bradley Sands, and many others in the hopper. The music you're listening to is the Vitamin String Quartet's cover of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart, but in just a moment you'll be listening to my son Benjamin and I discuss Hegel's Reason.
---
Unrelated Essay: Star Trek, Pong, and Class Struggle
One question that came out of John Scalzi’s apt blog post “Straight, White, Male: The Easiest Difficulty Level There Is” is this one:
“How might we understand the idea of class through video games?”
That is, if using the analogy of an RPG video game can help white male nerds understand institutionalized racism and white privilege, it’s also possible that video games might help nerds of every gender and race understand the concept of class structure and class struggle.
In Adam Curtis’s documentary “All Watched Over by Machine’s of Loving Grace” the filmmaker interviewed Loren Carpenter about his 1991 experiment using the game Pong to inspire mass collaboration. In the interview Carpenter explains how a group of 5000 people spontaneously figured out how to collaborate to play pong on a giant screen. The collaborating crowd spontaneously figured out how to cooperate with a minimum amount of communication and no hierarchal structures of power; there were no overt directions nor any chain of command, but the crowd was able to figure out how to collectively move the paddles on the big screen and keep the ball bouncing back and forth. They learned how to run a flight simulator game collectively, and how to solve the variety of other puzzles put to them. They worked together each time in a completely egalitarian way and as a mass.
Read More at Tor.comThere is no guest this week as Benjamin and I discuss Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit focussing o...